But in this country, we consider that all people have the same rights to speech. But we do not guarantee that everyone have the same rights to money. If you equivacate speech with money then because some have more, they get more 'speech' than others.

But let's go further. If you say that money is free speech, you must say that anything money can buy is free speech too. Because money is only a commodity to buy things. So then land is free speech too. But we in this country long ago abandoned the idea that only landowners could vote. Everyman has an equal say regardless of his landholding status. It was one of the principals we hold in this country.

Tell me how one can communicate in a political sense sans money.

The answer is: one cannot.

And where is the shortage of access of money for those who wish to articulate their political ideas?

Nothing I wrote said that you couldn't use money. Only that speech ~= money. And there is no "right" to use your money for political speech.

And where is the shortage of access of money for those who wish to articulate their political ideas?

Nobody's giving me any money to air my political views. :)

However, if you wanted to run for office, one measure of your ability to garner the support needed to run would be your ability to raise funds.

And really, in this context, we are taking about running for office.

Further, the Supremes have equated political speech with money--it will be interesting to see what they say on that matter when they hear the BCRA case.

you have a link to the case? i'm not familiar with it. or at least not the acronymn.

Uh, the airwaves are public property. Perhaps if we reduce the demand for money, say like using part of the public commmons of the airwaves for cheap political ads, maybe the whole problem will go away.

The current insanity focusses on the supply instead of the demand, and as any economist knows, this won't do jack. Heck, look at our drug policy for a clear example.

But wait! That's communist talk. Back to my hole.

It won't work: look at the way we finance the general election campaign: theoretically everyone has the same amount of money, but what happens? people find ways around those limits, because it matters to them who gets elected to the Presidency. Look at George Soros, for example, even in the face of restrictions on soft money he has found ways to indirectly spend millions to work to defeat Bush.

As long as the federal government is going to collect and spend $2.4 trillion a year, people are going to care who gets elected to key positions.

Even if you give away free air time to candidates, other people are still going to spend money to try to support and/or defeat given candidates.

And while the airwaves are "public"---the broadcast capacity itself isn't.

I will say it again: money is inherently part of politics and to try and "take the money out of politics" is folly. One might as well take the air out of breathing.