Here's some heartening news for those of you keeping score at home: We're only halfway through the GOP presidential primaries.
Wait, don't jump!
Some good may yet come from the GOP's death-march. The race has thus far been so destructive that it's managed to do the impossible: Americans are uniting... against Citizens United. Thanks to the intraparty negativity, support for overturning the case has gone from 62 percent in January to 80 percent in March, and presented President Obama with a rare opportunity. In the off-chance that healthcare is overturned and bin Laden emerges from the Arabian Sea like the skeletons in Pirates of the Caribbean, here's fertile ground for Obama to go legacy-hunting. He should campaign for a constitutional amendment to end money-as-speech in politics. Thanks to Super PACs, Newt Gingrich, and the most damaging primary battle in two decades, it's actually becoming feasible.
The Court's decision -- in effect, to bless unlimited corporate donations to proxies "unaffiliated" with the campaigns -- has blasted Pandora's box into a million pieces. And, by god, the splinters are flying everywhere, especially into the eyes of the Republicans.
The Super PAC-hate is widespread and multi-factored, but we begin with the never-ending circus that is the Newton Leroy Gingrich campaign. The physics of presidential politics used to be simple: when popular support dried up, a campaign would run out of cash and close shop: thus, action and reaction. Not anymore, friends. We now live in a world of Newt-onian mechanics: When an unstoppable force meets an immovable object, that immovable object finds a sugar daddy to bankroll his tantrums.
By all accounts, we should have been rid of the speaker after Iowa. With the exception of close relatives and a few enthusiasts in Georgia, nobody wanted to invest in a scene from Don Quixote. But, lo! Enter Sheldon Adelson, the Las Vegas billionaire and benefactor to Gingrich's ego-trip; he's like Magwitch, the generous convict in Great Expectations, and he's showered his bloated 'Pip' candidate with cash so feverishly, you'd think the man had developed an allergy to paper. (If you haven't been acquainted with Mr. Adelson, he feels very strongly about Israel's security, and looks a lot like the Indiana Jones villains whose faces melt off when they open the Ark of the Covenant.)
And so, thanks to a single, obscenely rich fellow, Gingrich has been permitted to extend his Monty-Python/Black Knight imitation until we all go bananas.
Yet as Gingrich runs around the country insisting he's a "world-historical figure," waving farcical gas station logos, and making promises about plummeting prices plausible only on his imagined moon colony, Republicans and Democrats alike are struck by the utter preposterousness of the charade. Nothing has so exposed the laughable impracticality of Citizens United as crisply as Mr. Adelson's one-man marching band for a dude most Americans wouldn't trust running a 7-Eleven. So, really, I suppose we should thank Adelson and join him in Vegas to celebrate.
Beyond the Gingrich specter, Super PACs have also led to the most negative bloodbath in primary history. Hit-job ads are effective at destroying their target, but have also, historically, blemished the attacker enough to discourage unbridled use. It's the reason you don't see Coke running commercials that begin with an ominous voice whispering "Pepsi tastes good... but is it really healthy for you?... Coke is an American company with American values." It's unbecoming.
But from behind the veiled anonymity of Orwellian names like "Restore our Future," there's no incentive to hold back. Hence, the thousands of shockingly aggressive intraparty assaults, the likes of which nobody has ever seen. Voters everywhere have felt ambushed by the cascade of constant primal shrieking. They can't escape it; not in hotels, not in cars, not in their homes. The attacks have disillusioned Americans' already cynical view of government, and left a bad taste in their mouths. And rest assured, the general election is going to make this look like Jenga. Americans in swing-states will be vomiting in trash bins by November.
Finally, and most importantly, Super PAC vitriol has left the GOP nominee-in-waiting with a bloody nose. Thanks to nuclear exchanges like this one, Mitt Romney's unfavorability rating has hit 50 percent, an unprecedented number for a nominee. When and if Mr. Romney loses the election, look for Republicans to blame the Citizens-encouraged brawling for delivering a wounded candidate into the ring. The party is already adopting the narrative.
So, what to do? Rebalancing the Court could certainly lead to a reversal, but President Obama should go big -- blaze the trail with a call for constitutional amendment. There are enormous hurdles, of course. For one thing, the requisite two-thirds Congressional support and three-fourths state ratification is a daunting percentage in 2012 America. But polls indicate we're already close, and the fall battle will only spike support. And, yes, Obama's endorsement of his own Super PAC will expose him to charges of hypocrisy; but surely few reasonable voters expect a candidate to unilaterally disarm while the current law stands. We didn't abolish our nuclear weapon stockpile to set an example during the Cold War, after all. Of course, most difficult will be the corporate lobbyists standing in the way of a campaign finance overhaul.
But the public is on the president's side. Such a call to action would be bold; popular; and necessary. America's owner's manual needs revising. The Super PAC pandemonium has made that clear.
So shoot for the moon, Mr. President. Just make sure you don't hit Newt's colony.
Follow Ben Zweifach on Twitter: www.twitter.com/BenZwei
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 |
|
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Electoral Votes (270 to win) |
332 | 206 |
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Total | 65,899,660 | 60,932,152 |
| Percent | 51.1% | 47.2% |
| Democrats* | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Current Senate | 53 | 47 |
| Seats gained or lost | +2 | -2 |
| New Total | 55 | 45 |
| Democrats | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Seats won | 201 | 234 |
All citizens united did was put groups of people at the same level as rich individuals
Second: citizens united is a good thing for democracy. It is allowing political views not endourced by either party to have a chance of being heard. Want to talk about ending wars when both parties support them? Create a PAC and run ads. Ending the drug war, eliminate the Fed, close GTMO. All can be pushed by private groups and be heard during an election.
Finally money is speach. If you disagree then try to get elected without money.
We'll be looking back on the first term as the Good Old Days if that happens.
it's corruption on a biblical scale.
Parting the Red Sea was easier than getting politicians to give up tens of millions in free money to help keep them in their cushy taxpayer funded healthcare, great retirement package, and a new job making ten times as much on K Street.
Not gonna happen but if it does, I'll be first in line to vote Citizens United down.
So, to rebalance the Court: Elect a Democrat to the White House (In the present case Obama.). Keep electing Democrats until Roberts, Kennedy, Scalia, Alito and Thomas, or at least most of them, are retired or dead and buried. Appoint Justices who are not on the take, and in the pockets of the Koch brothers. Who don't believe it's their prerogative to appoint Presidents, empower corporations while disenfranchising citizens, and vetoing legislation that personally offends them.
The Court has in fact shown that it doesn't matter how you amend the Consitution. If you have the wrong people in the Supreme Court, they will thumb their nose at it. How else to explain Bush v. Gore and Citizens United?
Frankly, if Citizens United and Super-PAC groups are destroying the GOP and their candidates, I say, why would we want this to stop.
I love having Newt and Ricky around to bite at Willard's heels. Have at 'em, boys!
They all deserve each other. Let American's get good and sick of the attack ads. The best way for people to find out that maybe they don't want what they think they want is to give it to them.
I have no sympathy, I've been tortured for decades by ubiquitous Kenny G. elevator music everywhere I go, even in the lobby's of supposedly upscale hotels. Let everyone see how it feels to be aurally and visually assaulted. Give them Ricky's Obamaville. Let them choke on it.
This will be the ugliest election in US history, and it will be extremely one-sided: the negative campaigns are run by the SuperPACs and while Obama's raised a lot of money for his campaign, his SuperPAC is tiny compared to the many hundreds of millions in the conservative SuperPACs.
We could conceivably see a billion dollars spent just on smear against Obama.
More likely much of that amassed conservative SuperPAC wealth isn't going to get spent in the election, and will then transform in to pressure groups, just like Ron Paul did with his excess campaign millions last election when he created Campaign For Liberty. And then all of this will repeat the next election cycle. And the next.
The conservative justices in the supreme court passed the ridiculous Citizens United ruling because the Koch brothers believed it would favor the republican party. They were not wrong.
And let's not forget who went back on his pledge when it came to campaign financing in the last Presidential Election....
Or who it was that "turned off" the safety valves that are put in place to make sure individuals do not donate too much money to a campaign...
Citizens United was designed to allow groups of people to donate to a cause they believed in and to get their voice heard...by the way, when will I hear anyone say that Unions should not be allowed to donate the way they do now?
Ah well, yes, another article presuming once again that all Huffington Post's readers are liberal democrats. Or is that wishful thinking? Regardless, it's refreshing to see another piece admit it's own bias.
--- "The Tweed Ring" by Alexander Callow