ABC News reports that Super PACs are spending twice as much money as the candidates in South Carolina:
The super PACs, which are allowed to raise unlimited sums but cannot coordinate with candidates, have spent over $7 million so far in the Palmetto State compared to all of the presidential contenders, who have spent a combined total of $3.2 million. In other words, super PACs have spent $3.8 million more on television ads in the state than the candidates, according to a source tracking media buys in early primary states.
What this means is that the traditional winnowing of the field is not occurring. Normally, candidates who do poorly in Iowa and New Hampshire run out of money for advertising and drop out. But, so far, only Michele Bachmann has taken that step. On the one hand, this prevents two overwhelmingly white states from determining which two or three candidates the rest of the country is going to get to choose from. That’s good, I guess. But, on the other hand, this dramatically reduces the reward candidates get from building a grassroots base of support. If a handful of rich, anonymous, businessmen and women can flood these Super PACs with hundreds of millions of dollars, then candidates can stay in the races as long as they can raise enough money to buy jet fuel and reserve hotel rooms.
The Supreme Court is looking more and more ridiculous every day.
Here’s some wisdom from John Paul Stevens’ dissent:
If taken seriously, our colleagues’ assumption that the identity of a speaker has no relevance to the Government’s ability to regulate political speech would lead to some remarkable conclusions. Such an assumption would have accorded the propaganda broadcasts to our troops by “Tokyo Rose” during World War II the same protection as speech by Allied commanders. More pertinently, it would appear to afford the same protection to multinational corporations controlled by foreigners as to individual Americans: To do otherwise, after all, could “ ‘enhance the relative voice’ ” of some ( i.e. , humans) over others ( i.e. , nonhumans). Ante , at 33 (quoting Buckley , 424 U. S., at 49). 51 Under the majority’s view, I suppose it may be a First Amendment problem that corporations are not permitted to vote, given that voting is, among other things, a form of speech. 52
In short, the Court dramatically overstates its critique of identity-based distinctions, without ever explaining why corporate identity demands the same treatment as individual identity. Only the most wooden approach to the First Amendment could justify the unprecedented line it seeks to draw.
Elena Kagan is doing great, but I still miss Justice Stevens. I miss him so much that I must quote him again:
Business corporations must engage the political process in instrumental terms if they are to maximize shareholder value. The unparalleled resources, professional lobbyists, and single-minded focus they bring to this effort, I believed, make quid pro quo corruption and its appearance inherently more likely when they (or their conduits or trade groups) spend unrestricted sums on elections.
It is with regret rather than satisfaction that I can now say that time has borne out my concerns. The legislative and judicial proceedings relating to BCRA generated a substantial body of evidence suggesting that, as corporations grew more and more adept at crafting “issue ads” to help or harm a particular candidate, these nominally independent expenditures began to corrupt the political process in a very direct sense. The sponsors of these ads were routinely granted special access after the campaign was over; “candidates and officials knew who their friends were,” McConnell , 540 U. S., at 129. Many corporate independent expenditures, it seemed, had become essentially interchangeable with direct contributions in their capacity to generate quid pro quo arrangements. In an age in which money and television ads are the coin of the campaign realm, it is hardly surprising that corporations deployed these ads to curry favor with, and to gain influence over, public officials.
The majority appears to think it decisive that the BCRA record does not contain “direct examples of votes being exchanged for … expenditures.” Ante , at 45 (internal quotation marks omitted). It would have been quite remarkable if Congress had created a record detailing such behavior by its own Members.
Well, duh!
