More money more speech.

Editor,

Thirty-second "issue" ads' purpose is to drown out actual speech about actual issues with a torrent of misleading slogans and distract voters from hearing about and thus speaking about them. Also, the more money a faction can afford to spend on television ads, the more noise -- as opposed to speech -- that faction can buy. One-man-one-vote democracy allots precisely as much power in the voting booth to a menial laborer and a CEO. Issue ads enable the rich to buy more "speech" than their political opponents can afford and drive real debate about real issues off of the political playing field.