Self-study
Political advocate: Conclusion Campaigns for elective office should be subsidized with public funds. ███ ██████ ██ ████ ████ █████ █████ ███████████ ██ ██████ ████ ████ ██ █████████████ ████ ██████ ███████████ ██████████ ████ ████ ██ █████ ███ ███████ █ ██████ ██████ ██ ████ ████ █████████ █████ ████ ██ ████████ ██ ███ ████ ██ ██████████ ████████ ██████████████ ███████ ████████ ███ ██████████ ████ ███████ █████████ ████ ██ ███████ ███ ███ ███████ ███ ██ ███ ██████ ███ ██ ██████████ █████ █████████████
███████ ████ ████████ ██ ████████████ ███ ████ ███ ████ █████████ ██████████████ ███ ████ ████ ██████████ ████ ██ █████ ███████ ████ █████ █████████████
Stimulus Summary
The advocate proposes that campaigns for elective office should be subsidized with public funds. She offers two reasons in support of this proposal:
Reason 1: Public subsidies would allow politicians to devote less time to fund-raising, giving incumbents more time to serve the public.
Reason 2: Public subsidies would make it possible to set caps on individual campaign contributions, which would reduce the likelihood that elected officials are working for individual large contributors rather than the public.
So in the advocate's mind, public funding is a win-win. Politicians save time and they're less beholden to wealthy donors.
The critic pushes back. She points out that contribution caps would force candidates to spend more time chasing small donations. Think about what that means. Suppose a candidate used to receive one $1,000 donation from a single wealthy contributor. If a cap limits contributions to $100, that candidate now needs to find ten different people willing to give $100 each to raise the same amount. That takes a lot more time and effort.
This is a problem for the advocate's argument, because Reason 1 promises that public subsidies will save politicians time on fund-raising. But a direct consequence of Reason 2 (contribution caps) is that politicians would need to spend more time fund-raising. The two reasons are pulling in opposite directions.
Anticipation
Since the question asks us to describe the critic's objection, we want to understand what the critic is saying before going to the answer choices. The critic isn't saying that one of the advocate's reasons is wrong on its own. She's saying that the two reasons conflict with each other. Implementing caps (Reason 2) would create a side effect that works against the time-saving benefit promised by Reason 1. We're looking for an answer that captures this tension between the advocate's two reasons.
Analysis by Kevin_Lin
7.
The critic objects that the ████████████ ████████ ██ ██████ ███████
a
any resourceful large ███████████ ███ ██████████ ████ ██ ██████████ █████████████ ██ ███████ ██ ███████ ███████ █████ ███████ █████
b
one of the █████████ ███████ █████ ██ ███████ ██ ███ ████████ ████ ██ ████████ ██ ███ █████ ███ █████████ ████ ███ ██████████ ███████████ ███████ ██ ███ ████████
c
of the two █████████ ███████ █████ ██ ███████ ██ ███ ████████ █████ ███ █████ ███████ ███ █████
d
it overlooks the ███████████ ████ █████ ████████████ ████ ████ ████████████ ██ ████ ██████ ██████████ ██ ████
e
it overlooks the ███████████ ████ ██████████ ████ █ ███ █████████ ████████ ████████████ ████ ██ ███ ██████ ██ ████ ████ ██████████ ████ ████ ██████████ ████████ ████████████