Fortunately, money isn’t everything, but still…
Republican super PACs and other outside groups shaped by a loose network of prominent conservatives – including Karl Rove, the Koch brothers and Tom Donohue of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce – plan to spend roughly $1 billion on November’s elections for the White House and control of Congress, according to officials familiar with the groups’ internal operations.
That total includes previously undisclosed plans for newly aggressive spending by the Koch brothers, who are steering funding to build sophisticated, county-by-county operations in key states. POLITICO has learned that Koch-related organizations plan to spend about $400 million ahead of the 2012 elections – twice what they had been expected to commit.Just the spending linked to the Koch network is more than the $370 million that John McCain raised for his entire presidential campaign four years ago. And the $1 billion total surpasses the $750 million that Barack Obama, one of the most prolific fundraisers ever, collected for his 2008 campaign.
We have to find a way to survive this. And then he have to find a way to turn off the spigot. I’m indescribably angry about what the Supreme Court did to our democracy with their Citizens United ruling. And if rich billionaires think I’m alone, they’re badly mistaken. This isn’t a threat; it’s a confident prediction. There will be civil unrest in a large scale before long if our elections continue to be little more than pissing matches between rival billionaires and if the Republican Party continues to survive in its current form solely through the use of limitless contributions from the incredibly wealthy and ever-increasing efforts to suppress the non-white vote.
Is there any possible way to survive this as a nation if the republicans run the table in November?
Or should I consider that a rhetorical question?
Is there any possible way to survive this as a nation if the republicans run the table in November?
If you mean survive to the end of Mittens first term, no!!
Don’t let this fly under the radar:
We need to identify which counties and call out this massive outside funding. Wake County NC was the test case for this tactic in its school board race in 2010.
This is attempting to solidify the 1%’s control so that it never can be rooted out.
Republicans since 2000 have been operating a strategy of trying to outspend and outrun progressives in order to solidify a “permanent Republican majority” institutionally — even in spite of public opinion.
This has been another edition of “What TarheelDem Said.”
Which makes it all the more stupid for DWS and other like-minded Democrats to try and chase that cash. There is a reason Democrats ruled from FDR’s time until Tricky Dick. Would the GOP had been able to win the Presidency in the 1950’s if they didn’t run a war hero? Doubt it.
If money bought every election…the GOP would never lose again. It’s simply not a thing to panic over. Money as speech only works SO well, and then not much.
That’s why the GOP is planning to spend only TWICE as much as the Democrats. They ain’t stupid. They know it’s a waste. We could call it the only stimulus they can claim, because that’s what it is–stimulus without any appreciable POLITICAL effect.
Americans are stupid, but they’re not quite THAT stupid. The real news would be if Democrats were spending money to EXPLAIN the issues and get voters on their side…if. If.
Some small encouraging news at the local level?
Our group, Occupy Democracy – Pasadena, has now gone to two different farmers markets in Congressman Schiff’s new district (CA CD 28), the Hollywood Farmers Market and the Atwater Village Farmers Market, flyering for people to call his office to demand he co-sponsor legislation which starts a constitutional amendment to overturn corporate personhood. We handed out 425 flyers over a two week time period (oddly enough the Hollywood Farmers Market crowd was apathetic to hostile to our presence) and had our best conversations at the Atwater market.
We feel like if 10% make calls (dare we hope for a higher percentage), that’s a jump in calls from his new constituents for him to get off his ass and lead on this very important issue.
Congressman Schiff may be leaving our district but that hasn’t prevented us from adapting. Persistence and imagination will win out.
Regards,
Patrick, ODP
There will be civil unrest in a large scale before long if our elections continue to be little more than pissing matches between rival billionaires and if the Republican Party continues to survive in its current form solely through the use of limitless contributions from the incredibly wealthy and ever-increasing efforts to suppress the non-white vote.
I agree — there will be civil unrest.
Unfortunately, it will probably come from the ever more impoverished white non-plutocrat class, who will continue to have their anger directed at us (for our supposed cultural elitism) rather than at the people who are actually impoverishing them.
I agree – the threat of civil unrest comes not from the masses animated by the pissing matches between rival billionaires, but from the Hatfields and McCoys animated by their second defeat come November at the hands of that (n-word) and his minions.
Good luck on both counts.
I assume by “finding a way to survive this” you mean Obama will also need to spend a $Billion dollars.. or even more, to counter the “eveel” repugs.
That horse left the barn long ago, way before Citizens United came about. that travesty merely codified the SCOTUS’ earlier ruling equating campaign donations with free speech (i.e. for the wealthy).
Christ on a stick.
The SCOTUS ruling in Citizens United decodified or uncodified or deregulated or ripped up into little pieces, but it codified nothing.
I think you were going for something like “put the finishing touches on” or something.
It’s true that earlier rulings that equated free speech and money started this ball rolling.
On the other hand, Super PACs didn’t exist prior to the ruling, and individuals were limited to strict spending caps. Corporations were banned from interfering in elections in many states and they couldn’t directly advocate for candidates or make electioneering communications near election day.
And, yes, the Democrats will be corrupted by this process because you can’t fight monied interests without some money of your own.
I agree– you have to fight money with money.
However, you don’t have to do it exactly like the repugs do, i.e. with tons of expensive, negative, blah, blah, blah TV advertising which most people are disgusted with.
Again, you can’t say your team is better/different than the other team if you are doing more or less exactly the same things they are.
I wouldn’t count on civil unrest. It would interfere with orgasming over the latest iphone. In Tunisia maybe or Myan Mar, but if there was unrest it would be over all them Others trying to stifle the free speech of our most admirable citizens who give us so many wonderful things to enjoy. And all those funders from China and Iran and Saudi Arabia and Russia wouldn’t let a thing like civil unrest stand.
The only possibility of turning this around at this point is a rewrite of the dead weight of the Constitutional machinery that put us in this mess and will keep us there. But you don’t believe in silly stuff like that, do you?
I expect to see more things like this, as people become frustrated and feel impotent to change anything through civil means:
http://www.startribune.com/local/minneapolis/156108395.html