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The government of the United States should not fund election campaigns. The intrusion of the government further into the political market would cause and already overcrowded field of candidates to become even larger and more confusing.

Currently, the market votes on a candidates acceptability before the election. Voters contribute money and time for candidates whom they would like to see elected. If a candidate has broad enough appeal, then he or she will have plenty of campaign money and workers.

Conversely, if a candidate cannot build enough support to run a campaign, is it likely that he or she will have enough support to win an election? Hardly.

The current system has the advantage of keeping fringe candidates on the fringes. If the government offered financial support for all struggling campaigns, then we would see candidates with freakish views streaming out of the woodwork to take advantage of federal taxpayer money to spread their inane propaganda.

Animal rights activists make up a small part of the Democratic Party, but with federal funding for all campaigns, they could mount a separate campaign under a platform to stop all animal testing. Racist groups could mount a federally supported campaign calling for a return to segregation. Radical environmental groups could run a candidate that would promise to enact economically crippling environmental regulations.

Federal funding of all political campaigns would lead to the rapid growth of a multitude of micro-political parties. Instead of two candidates to choose from, we could conceivably be forced to pick from a slate of ten, twenty, or more. Most of these candidates would have little to offer apart from their one hot-button issue. Studies on other subjects show that when given a wide array of choices, many people simply don't make a choice at all.

There are problems with our political system. The primary system forces candidates to be extremely partisan for the first part of the campaign, then race to the middle for the general election, resulting in a schizophrenic campaign. In many cases, the best man for the job loses out to someone with a better image, but little or no substance. As a result, Americans are forced to choose between two people that they don't like, the lesser of two evils.

As with many other issues, the answer, at least in part, to the problem of campaign funding is to get the government out. We should level the playing field for challengers by removing

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