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he delivered it to the candidate of his choice or the candidate making the highest bid. There would be no requirement that the voter be paid, so the purist could still maintain that he or she had acted only in the best interests of the country. To insure that those seeking to be paid could get the best price possible, all paid political advertising would be outlawed.

The prospect of an election year in which no one had to endure a single campaign commercial should be enough to convince even the most puritanical of the merits of the system. In addition, all spending limits could be abolished. Candidates would be permitted to raise and spend unlimited amounts of money from any source. They usually do so anyway.

Under the present system the money spent on elections surpasses the total economies of many small countries. Before the 2008 campaign began, there were estimates that as much as $2.5 billion would be raised and up to $800 million would be spent on just the presidential race. As usual these projections were far short of realistic. By the end of May 2008 and the unofficial selection of Barack Obama and John McCain as the nominees, the total spending for the primaries had already exceeded $900 million according to the official tally of the Federal Election Commission. And, the total of all funds raised by the two parties and local candidates was nearly $3.8 billion. With another five months remaining in the season, the number could go as high as $5 billion.

Don Hewitt, who created the CBS program "Sixty Minutes," first came to the fore as the producer of the Nixon-Kennedy debates in 1960. He said: "When the debates were over, the politicians looked at each other and said: From now on this is how we will get elected'."And Hewitt added: "We in television looked at the politicians and said: Here is a bottomless pit of money'."

The pit may not be bottomless but it is larger than anyone ever could have imagined. By the time of the 1968 election, the writer Joe McGinniss pulled the curtain back with his best selling book The Selling of the President. It was apparent to anyone who was paying attention that political candidates were now being peddled like so many bars of soap. Unfortunately, we have become so adjusted to the process that we are no longer aware of there being another way.

Putting all political offices up for sale just might get the nation's attention. However, we need to prepare ourselves for the howls of moral outrage from the media. Nobody gives up that kind of money without a helluva fight. But with money out of the picture, the media could stop worrying about offending the big spenders. They might actually begin to honestly report on the candidates all of the candidates. Wouldn't that be a shock? In addition, the electorate might be turned off enough by the big spenders to begin selecting office holders on grounds other than a spiffy commercial.

Learn more about this author, Roger G Mccorkle.
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