Trying to decide whether Russ Feingold or Steve Benen is right about Super PACs is giving me a headache.
Ex-Sen. Russ Feingold on Thursday night sharply criticized Democrats for forming “super” political action committees that can take unlimited corporate cash, flatly calling the entities “wrong.”
“I empathize with the desire to fight fire with fire, but Democrats should just never be in the business of taking unlimited corporate contributions,” Feingold told the audience of liberal activists and bloggers gathered here for the Netroots Nation convention, eliciting cheers. “It’s dancing with the devil, and it’s a game that we will never win.”
The Wisconsin Democrat specifically went after Priorities USA, a Democratic Super PAC run by two former White House aides, Bill Burton and Sean Sweeney. The group already has been active in the 2012 presidential race, and several other Democratic groups have formed to mimic the massive campaign spending deployed by GOP groups such as American Crossroads in 2010.
“Creating those kind of Super PACs for Democrats is wrong,” Feingold said.
Here’s Benen:
The problem, though, has to do with changes Democrats didn’t want, but are nevertheless stuck with. We’re talking about Democrats and their allies simply playing by the rules — rules they don’t like, rules they wish were different, rules they’d gladly change, but the rules nevertheless.
Feingold is arguing, in effect, that Republicans can go ahead and play by the rules if they want to, but Democrats should impose tougher rules on themselves, on purpose, even if it makes GOP victories more likely, just on principle.
Benen’s point is obvious. Unilateral disarmament is usually foolish. But, is this a case where we lose either way? It’s easy to argue that it is better to lose with honor, but is that true?
With a big caveat, I have to side with Feingold. The caveat is, that we have to have a real answer to how we raise a lot more money from small donors. Answering that kind of question is what the Netroots Nation conference should be focused on like a laser.
You know, possibly Democrats could raise money from labor, from working people rather than from corporations. That would mean they’d have to deliver results, which would be a change, but it is in fact possible. And officials get elected by votes, technically, not by money — though appealing to people rather than corporations is rather passe.
Is it in fact possible to raise those sums from such a base? For all the senate races and house races, and state office races?
Have they ever been asked? Provided those elected officials follow through with results, of course. Look at now. Labor is one of the biggest sources of cash for Democrats yet they continually get crapped on.
“Have they ever been asked?”
Good question.
“Labor is one of the biggest sources of cash for Democrats”
Alrighty then. I guess we have our answer.
Did you know that 10,000,000 people times $100 equals $1,000,000,000?
I sure did, but look at Obama’s 2008 campaign. It’s hard to find a more energized year than that.
49% of his donations were for under $200. These are the “small donors.”
He raised 745 million. He spent about $730 million. About 450 million were raised from small donors.
So right there we are looking at $300 million hole. Now granted, there were small donations to the House and Senate campaign committees, individual candidates, and the Dean DNC, but that is a big hole and it is a very tall order to make up.
I find it hard to believe that we’ll have a better year than 2008.
Dammit, I spelled whole and hole.
The rules apply to unions and corporations alike.
Boo:
Did you see that The Baby Blue Cherub already posted a response to you?
who?
baby blue cherub: atrios.
as opposed to the G.O.S.
Still doesn’t fit him.
yes, but that indeed is what he’s been called, for quite some time.
Now I know.
.
Not Sure They’re Interested
blogger Duncan ‘Atrios’ Black – a/k/a the Baby Blue Cherub.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."You know, this could possibly be a debate, if we were dealing with, say, Nelson Rockefeller Republicans.
We are not.
Stop pretending that the GOP of today is nothing but a bunch of sociopaths.
Yes, that is who they are.
WTF has Feingold been doing since 2010. Does he NOT see what the GOP wants to do with this country?
The Dems didn’t ask for this. But, when they had the chance to write into law, that all donations had to be revealed, they didn’t. They let the Blue Dogs bitch and whine as to why this couldn’t happen, and of course, their asses got thrown out in 2010 – no better for them.
But, to pretend that the GOP isn’t full of sociopathic evil is to do a disservice to this country.
Russ needs to go somewhere and sit down.
You miss the point. Who is one of the few politicians that have met and joined the protestors in WI? Who lives in a state where Darth Walker is running rampant? do you know what happens when Democrats hoover up corporate cash? They move farther to the right. Haven’t you noticed anything these past 30 or 40 years? Eisenhower would be to the left of the Democrats on a number of issues today. And why is that?
Because the New Deal era represented an unheard of peak for leftist politics in this country, and there was nowhere to go but right.
And still, the bitching and whining from the far left during that era was as hysterical and unending as it is today.
Let’s recognize what all that money is intended to do for a campaign. It is designed to force information on the public to either spur them to vote, or more frequently discourage them from voting. Or to create enough doubt in the voting booth that folks change their intentions.
From the point of view of the donors, it provides access should the candidate actually win.
The idea that Democrats need these groups to fight back is an admission that Democrats lack the grassroots people power to prevail — and BTW have for over 40 years.
And the reason for this is the fact that candidates use field work for margin instead of creating a strong base. And once elected, those folks are neglected until the next election.
The 2010 election showed that OFA turned out to operate on the same pattern in spite of grassroots OFA members working very hard to make it different.
The fundamental economic fact is that in an economy with 10% unemployment and wages severely constrained, the idea that small donors can come up with a half billion or a billion dollars to blow on media companies who fundamentally oppose their interests is absurd. It’s not going to happen.
What would be most helpful would be for Democrats to decide to massively boycott the corporate media unless they are given fair treatment. There are cheaper media solutions, but they don’t provide as much kickbacks to the campaign professionals.
It would also be helpful to authentically involve the grassroots in the setting of the agenda and strategy of the campaign in their localities instead of listening only to the same old pols.
The key to winning the future is making the Republicans spend lots of money and losing. The Republican grassroots consists primarily of so-called value voters and the would-be wealthy. And they are wooed by buying media personalities, buying preachers, and conducting viral e-mail campaigns. In other words, straight-up capitalist marketing.
Democrats need to stop marketing and return to politicking. That is, listening instead of telling. Understanding instead of posturing. And being straight-up honest about where they stand. Tom Perriello nearly pulled it out last year through this strategy. To the point that the GOP had to screw around with student residency requirements in Charlottesville to depress the vote.
The real question is how do we win by spending 1/50th of what the GOP does. And how do we make the media blitz that’s coming ineffective by deconstructing it. And deconstructing it in such a way that the lizard brain doesn’t override reason.
The GOP has totally given away policy arguments. Character assassination is all they have left. And what the GOP has done in the states will be more influential than the hash they have made of DC. There is a backlash to austerity coming. We cannot allow the GOP to ride it to victory again.
The amazing thing is how little people care about who is running things. If people really thought it mattered, then corporate money would be irrelevant.
Here’s why:
In 2010, the total money spent on campaigns has been estimated to be $4Bn. So, let’s say the Democrats need half that, or $2Bn, in an election cycle (ignoring the Presidential race). The 2008 election was a very expensive one for me. I gave $1000 to various senate candidates. All of my candidates lost, so all I got out of it was that one of them requested to be my friend on Facebook. In 2010, I didn’t make any contributions, since I figured my candidates could lose just as well without my money as with it.
OK, so I wandered off the argument a bit. But here is the point. My income is less than the median income in Wisconsin, where I live. So it is not because I am unusually wealthy that I can afford to spend $1000 in an election year. There have to be 2 million liberals who can afford $1000. In fact, since liberal political views and income are both correlated with education level, you would expect 2 million to be a very low bar. Liberal candidates shouldn’t need corporate money. But they do. So, it has to be that people who have the ability to contribute don’t care enough about the outcome to spend that much of their income (there should be an unfortunate pun in there somewhere).
i can almost afford $1000 a year. Unfortunately, I need it for me, since the Democrats haven’t exactly been the party of getting things done.
“we do big things” is demonstrably false. We do little things, marginal things.
I’m not saying everyone can afford that much. I know they can’t. But 34 million people cast votes for democratic senate candidates in 2010. You need just 2 million to give at that level to finance all campaigns except for the Presidential race. And, technically, it’s not $1000 a year — it’s $500, since an election cycle is 2 years. So, it’s less than $1.50 a day.
I have to admit that I might not be able to contribute so much in future elections. The state of Wisconsin pays my salary, so the 2010 elections had a direct effect on my income, possibly a catastrophic effect. I’ll see how bad it is when the dust settles.
I want to win! I want Democrats to win! Feingold lost. I want to be on the winning team. The team that wants to work. We don’t have time to wait for Progressives to figure shit out.
That is the complete truth.
ok, this is funny
Well, this could certainly be a productive debate over the future of the party…oh wait, never mind. I see Feingold specifically called out an administration-sponsored group and not just a generic Democratic Party group. The fingers, they have gone squarely into the ears then.
Maybe the question can be taken up with greater seriousness in time for 2016…
I’m with Russ. The only thing that matters is what kind of person you are. Most of us are not born capitalists, but we adapt to the system we have to live with. Some become thieves, grifters, drug dealers or whores for money and some don’t. Any party that does is not for me.
We know it’s the money in politics that got us in trouble, but in elections most of that goes to the television corps using our so-called ‘public airwaves’ for profit. Privatizing that was a big mistake, now it’s up to us all to protect the internet, our public square.
Obama was so right when he said that change wouldn’t be easy and it would take all of us working together, and that’s what we voted for. Now they’re scared of losing power. It’s hard to stay part of a party or a church that does wrong. Slowly we evolve, look what’s happening to the republicans, they are as lost as we are at learning how to live together. Still working on that “Don’t criticize – organize” thing.
A Corporation exists solely for profit – who does that? A super-pac devoted to empowering one man or group. It’s the real class war. Or it’s the justification for guns and nuclear bombs – let’s call it defense rather than dominion.
I don’t want to win anything by stealing elections or assassination. That used to define me (and Russ) as a Democrat. Isn’t integrity more important than winning?
Unity is the real triumphant power – we’ll get there if we keep trying to form this more perfect union.
we have to have a real answer to how we raise a lot more money from small donors.
I donated online to an organization that was helping out in Wisconsin and it accepted as little as $3.
2008 small donors with the Netroots. The latter is a small subset of the former.
Well, if you want raise big bucks from small Netroots donors, you tell them there is a sick cat or dog that needs surgery…
As much as I respect Russ Feingold’s values and I totally understand his point, handicapping ourselves with a different set of rules just means we lose. The goal in campaign propaganda is to sway the undecided voters to what looks like the winning side. If we’re getting smeared by anonymous-corporate-donor-organizations, we look like the losers and we lose. It’s all a perception game really and the Corporatists know this. We don’t like the way the game is played for sure. So we need to change the rules. The only way we can do that is to win BIG by playing by the same (awful) rules.
TBogg some time back had an answer to a different question but the same answer would apply here. That question was basically:
And his answer: