Big Money in Politics

[Danny Bateman]

Very interesting article from the folks at Politico on the rise & fall of the Tea Party movement.

Basically, the author argues that SuperPACs bled the Tea Party movement for all it was worth financially, and gave very little of that money back to cause political change. The two analyses they mentioned in the article showed Conservative SuperPACs spent an average of 92% on overhead and only 7% (in some cases less than 1%) on actual candidates or actual political expenditures.

 

Personally, I think there's merit to some of the push to move away from PACs. If THIS is the kind of activity the Supreme Court ruled was protected under the First Amendment in the Citizens United ruling, well, I think it's wrong. It's one thing to spend money as a SuperPAC to try to change politics for people. It's another to ripoff their money and keep it for yourself legally. Even Trump, for all his flaws, rails on SuperPACs. I'm usually not a very kneejerk, populist kind of guy, but perhaps not all populist pleas should fall on deaf ears.

 

When Ken Cuccinelli, one of Ted Cruz's strongest supporters, says this about a court case he won against a SuperPAC raising off of his name and keeping it, you know something is a bit funny:

 

 

Their defense was ‘free speech’… But you don’t have the freedom to go tell little old ladies that if they give you $50, you are going to do ‘X’ with it and then not do it. You don’t have a First Amendment right of free speech to bilk them out of money.”

 

Where do the rest of you fall on this issue? We have a wide variety of political leanings here, and it leads to some good conversation.

[knapplc]

Citizens United is going to be Target #1 for Clinton regarding Supreme Court nominees.

[Danny Bateman]

I agree Knapp. It was really Sanders' pet project, too.

 

Do you think that is a good or a bad thing?

[cm husker]

Citizens United is going to be Target #1 for Clinton regarding Supreme Court nominees.

Probably the #1 most misunderstood decision of the past several decades.

 

That said, I agree with Rhenquist's statements related to the topic.

[Danny Bateman]

 

Citizens United is going to be Target #1 for Clinton regarding Supreme Court nominees.

Probably the #1 most misunderstood decision of the past several decades.

 

That said, I agree with Rhenquist's statements related to the topic.

 

 

For the uninitiated, Rehnquist was of the mind that the First Amendment should extend to people and not corporations, right?

[cm husker]

Basically he said that "corporate status is government granted, so government should be allowed to regulate them."

 

I tend to agree with that simple take.

 

For those who hate citizens United, I wonder if they are ok with unions losing 1A rights.

[BigRedBuster]

I agree all the people who hate Citizens United and super pacs.

 

However, if unions and other special interests can donate large amounts of money, so should corporations.

[ZRod]

What if all the donations went into one giant slush fund, and each candidate got an equal share come the end of the primaries? Whatever they have leftover goes to paying down the debt.

[BigRedBuster]

What if all the donations went into one giant slush fund, and each candidate got an equal share come the end of the primaries? Whatever they have leftover goes to paying down the debt.

I would be perfectly fine with that.

 

Now, how do you take the money out of the propaganda machines that surround the parties?

[zoogs]

I don't think big money is nearly as much of an issue in the presidential election than in down ballot. Wish I had the graph to pull up, but man is it just a game of outspending.

 

Nationally, everyone sort of has eyes on, and everyone tends to vote (by comparison), so it's a lot of the personal appeal game. You can have big money and Super PACs line up behind a guy and he'll lose if there's a popular, charismatic figure people love like Donald Trump. On the whole, I'm not sure the strength of popular influence on the election is a good thing. It's the sort of force that pushes the contest for a very serious job in very non-serious directions.

 

Equally, candidates and parties that build sophisticated, data-driven campaign operations are rewarded as Obama was in 2008 and 2012; is that entirely fair, either? I'm not sure there's any easy solution.

[ZRod]

 

What if all the donations went into one giant slush fund, and each candidate got an equal share come the end of the primaries? Whatever they have leftover goes to paying down the debt.

 

I would be perfectly fine with that.

 

Now, how do you take the money out of the propaganda machines that surround the parties?

I don't know. I just wanted to tackle the easy one first hahah! There are too many parties and candidates to do the same before the primaries.

[Danny Bateman]

I don't think big money is nearly as much of an issue in the presidential election than in down ballot. Wish I had the graph to pull up, but man is it just a game of outspending.

 

Nationally, everyone sort of has eyes on, and everyone tends to vote (by comparison), so it's a lot of the personal appeal game. You can have big money and Super PACs line up behind a guy and he'll lose if there's a popular, charismatic figure people love like Donald Trump. On the whole, I'm not sure the strength of popular influence on the election is a good thing. It's the sort of force that pushes the contest for a very serious job in very non-serious directions.

 

Equally, candidates and parties that build sophisticated, data-driven campaign operations are rewarded as Obama was in 2008 and 2012; is that entirely fair, either? I'm not sure there's any easy solution.

 

You're right of course, Zoogs. There's a couple of distinct topics here. The point that the article I was making was that a lot of SuperPAC operators were just blatantly profiteering off the backs of the American conservative, masquerading as groups that legitimately want to affect political change.

 

You bring up an interesting other point about big money pouring in at the local and state level. You're seeing hints of that even from the party itself, hearing reports that party people want the RNC to turn money away from Trump and towards individual congressional and gubernatorial races.

 

You see that in donor world as well. From what I've gathered, in GOP donor land, there's lots of money sitting on the sidelines that is ordinarily freely given, because they're completely reticent to giving cash to Trump. The RNC is currently trying to convince donors they can still give to the RNC and NOT have it go towards Trump. It's also why the Koch's are OK not giving to his campaign either-- their funds will more towards other races than the usual election year.

 

It's easy to see how the brash, "self-funder" that rips into the donor class as corrupt could blunt the ordinary cashflow. But the GOP has been very, very successful doing what you've said, which is pouring massive funds into state and local races and dominating on sheer financial power. Dems do well on the national level, and they have some strong demographic changes trending in their favor.

[cm husker]

What if all the donations went into one giant slush fund, and each candidate got an equal share come the end of the primaries? Whatever they have leftover goes to paying down the debt.

How much should a random candidate receive? Let's say David duke throws in for president. Does he get the same amount as Hillary? As Ben Carson? And Johnson?

 

can candidates still self fund?

[ZRod]

Well, let's see... all funds would come from the same account, so if your self funding, your opposition gets an equal share of that money. David Duke has as much a right as any other citizen to run. Whether the media chooses to accept his money is another thing. Somehow we would need to establish a definition of parties to dictate who does and doesn't get to have access to the money. Each party would need a primary, and then the winner is granted access to the funds split betwee all winners.

[zoogs]

I'm going to have to agree with cm on that one. Like most simple proposals, it wouldn't take a deep look for it to start breaking down, I think. Campaign finance is kind of a messy issue.