Does this report from Haaretz make anyone uncomfortable? I bet it will.
American billionaire Sheldon Adelson, close ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and owner of the Israeli daily Israel Hayom, has given $5 million to an independent group backing Newt Gingrich’s presidential bid.
A person familiar with the situation said Adelson — founder and majority owner of Las Vegas-based company that owns Sands Casino Resort Bethlehem — made the contribution Friday to Winning Our Future, a pro-Gingrich super PAC. The person said Adelson would spend heavily to assist whichever candidate wins the Republican nomination.
In case you think the Gingrich Super PAC stole the president’s “Winning the Future” motto, it’s actually the other way around. The Super PAC cannot legally coordinate with the Gingrich campaign, but they also do not need to reveal their donors. In this case, Mr. Adelson wanted it known that he was financing Gingrich’s Super PAC.
I can tell you, as someone who has been personally responsible for getting thousands of unregistered voters on the voting rolls and then making sure most of them showed up at the polls, you don’t really change election outcomes by just showing up and casting your lonely vote. You change outcomes by mobilizing people. Back in 2004, I remember having the feelling that a single video tape release from Usama bin-Laden in the last week of the campaign had the effect of wiping out all my efforts. Yes, I produced thousands of votes for John Kerry in Pennsylvania, but one viral video moved the polls by quite a bit more than that. That’s the power of video imagery. That’s the power of political advertising. One individual with the money or influence to get their video on the air has the power to neutralize an army of community organizers. This was a problem before the Citizens United decision, but it’s completely demoralizing in the decision’s aftermath.
Gingrich felt the sting of this in Iowa, where Romney’s Super PAC bombarded him. Now his Super PAC is fighting back, mainly on the strength of one rabidly pro-Likud gambling magnate’s $5 million check.
The advertisements, a counterpunch to a campaign waged against Mr. Gingrich by a group backing Mr. Romney, will be built on excerpts from a scathing movie about Bain Capital, the private equity firm Mr. Romney once ran. The movie, financed by a Republican operative opposed to Mr. Romney, includes emotional interviews with people who lost jobs at companies that Bain bought and later sold.
“We had to load up the U-Haul because we done lost our home,” one woman says.
I suppose it’s fair game for Gingrich to fight back, but we have to change this system. It’s absolutely corrosive. The principle of one person, one vote is completely undermined by this kind of campaign financing. It’s particularly troubling when the donor has such close ties and big investments in a foreign country and clearly wants to influence the election so that the U.S. will have a pro-Likud president. How would we feel if this was a Chinese-American businessman who was best friends with the Chinese premier?
This system stinks, and we need a Supreme Court that will overrule Citizens United or people or just going to give up on the political system and either become apathetic or take to the streets.
