Americans are still almost a year away from heading to the polls to choose their next president, but significant campaign money is already flowing as the country lurches into its first presidential election since campaign finance regulations were gutted by the Supreme Court.
The 2010 midterm contests were noted for the massive infusion of cash into both Democratic and Republicans coffers, with virtually unregulated “independent” groups aligned with the parties pumping record amounts of money into the campaign. As the first post-Cititzen’s United election, 2010 delivered a disquieting blueprint for the future.
Most experts predict that 2012, with the first unregulated presidential contest and a highly charged partisan atmosphere on both sides, will end up as the country’s most expensive election ever, with individual donations to campaigns dwarfed by the nearly limitless power of deep-pocketed “bundlers,” political action committees, and the quasi-independent outside groups that shaped the midterms one years ago.
New players in the race for campaign cash are “super-PAC’s,” entities that must not “coordinate” activities with specific campaigns and candidates, but which can receive unlimited donations from corporations and individuals.
Still weeks from the start of the primary season in Iowa, and with Election Day just shy of a full calendar year away, the money game that will define the 2012 race is running at top speed.
The Republican presidential primary has been dominated by the influx of cash from independent groups that are legally unaffiliated with specific candidates, but which are producing millions of dollars worth of attack ads to sway GOP voters.
Federal Election Commission data shows that nearly $7 million has been spent by Republican-affiliated super-PAC’s during that party’s primary campaign, with nearly $3 million of that having been spent in the last week. Consider it a tiny microcosm of what is to come in the summer and autumn of 2012.
Independent groups supporting Republican presidential candidates have sprung to life, funding a flurry of new commercials in recent days to influence the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses and other early primary contests.
Restore Our Future, a conservative “super” PAC promoting Mitt Romney, is running $300,000 worth of ads in Florida that question the conservative credentials of GOP front-runner Newt Gingrich. The group also is spending $3.1 million in Iowa.
The Red White and Blue Fund, a super PAC backing former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum’s presidential bid, recently launched a $200,000 Iowa advertising campaign.
Overall, candidate-specific super PACs have reported spending more than $6.8 million this year. Nearly $2.7 million of that was spent in the past week, Federal Election Commission records show.
Campaign finance watchdogs are voicing concern over the unstoppable escalation in election spending, most notably by the lightly regulated super-PAC’s and outside organizations that are being set up by both parties. One advocate calls these groups the “most dangerous vehicles for corruption” in the nation’s politics.
The PACs can accept unlimited amounts of money from corporations and unions but are barred from coordinating their activity with candidates. By law, candidates cannot accept any money directly from corporate or union treasuries and no more than $2,500 from an individual for a primary or general election.
Fred Wertheimer, president of the watchdog group Democracy 21, argues the new PACs represent shadowy arms of presidential campaigns because they often are run and funded by candidates’ close allies.
“These are the most dangerous vehicles for corruption in American politics today,” he said.
Super-PAC’s and outside money have become the new normal in American elections, but some candidates are publicly calling for even more cuts to campaign finance regulation. Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney agrees that the current system is a “disaster” and that the government should “get rid of” super-PAC’s, but his solution would be eliminating all remaining restriction on campaign contributions and allow candidates to “raise the money they need.”
Quite a moment from Mitt Romney on “Morning Joe” today: The former Massachusetts governor, who has spoken at super PAC fundraisers and is benefiting from a wave of negative Restore Our Future ads directed at Newt Gingrich, called the very existence of super PACs a campaign finance “disaster” that should be eliminated.
Asked by the hosts if he would comply with Newt Gingrich’s demand and call on ROF to stop running attack ads against Gingrich, Romney dodged: “I’m not allowed to communicate with the super PAC in any way, shape or form.”
Then, he went further and condemned the creation of super PACs in general.
“They set up these new entities, which I think is a disaster, by the way. Campaign finance law has made a mockery of our political campaign season,” Romney said. “We really ought to let campaigns raise the morney they need and just get rid of these super PACs.”
As noted by Politico, Romney has greatly benefited from super-PAC activity, including an investment of $1 million this week alone by one pro-Romney group.
Romney’s GOP rival, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, has also been aided by the deep pockets of powerful friends and allies. While his campaign has been less aggressive in raising outside cash and money from super-PAC’s, Gingrich confidante and billionaire casino magnate Sheldon Adelson has reportedly given $20 million to a pro-Gingrich outside group.
Which candidate will prevail and attain the Republican nomination is uncertain, but they will most certainly face what is likely to be the unprecedented financial warchest of President Barack Obama.
Obama’s campaign has already targeted the goal of $1 billion raised for his reelection, dwarfing the record amount of funds he raised in 2008, and the effort is meeting with great success. And the President will also have the backing of third-part groups with the ability to raise unlimited funds; Democratic independent organizations have pledged to spend $200 million aiding Obama’s reelection in 2012.
And while publicly shying away from direct corporate contributions to super-PAC’s and outside allies, President Obama has been the recipient of millions of dollars in direct contributions from corporate executives. Despite the conventional wisdom labeling the President as an “anti-business” leader, Obama’s reelection campaign has raked in almost $6 million in contributions from executives, one-third of their total donations in the current cycle.
Successful fundraising among the business elite has always been part of Obama’s election strategy, with both his 2008 and 2012 campaigns having a “large donor component…linked to corporate America.”
President Barack Obama, who has been characterized as anti-business by his political opponents, has received more in campaign contributions from business executives this year than any Republican presidential candidate.
Obama raised $5.6 million from executives, or about a third of all their donations through Sept. 30, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Republican candidate Mitt Romney raised $5.2 million, far outpacing his primary challengers. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, the front-runner in the latest national polls, raised about $272,000, or 5 percent of Romney’s total.
The findings illustrate the powers of an incumbent president with an established fundraising apparatus, and the diversity of political preferences among business leaders. Executives from communications and technology firms led Obama’s donor list. Romney’s professional ties to the private-equity fund Bain Capital LLC, which he founded, fueled his receipts.
……..
Though Obama has criticized the excesses of Wall Street financial firms and their executives, he always has had “a large donor component that was linked to corporate America,” David Magleby, a political scientist and visiting scholar at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, said in an interview.
Penny Pritzker, a Chicago billionaire businesswoman and chairman of Pritzker Realty Group LLC, led Obama’s fundraising efforts in 2008. Matthew Barzun, a former CNET Networks Inc. executive, leads fundraising for Obama’s re-election campaign.
Our democracy will, and is already, quickly devolving into a Plutocracy because big-money influences our elections. There should be limits on what anyone can contribute individually and to a PAC and I think full disclosure requirements would be good for everyone. If you want free speech, then you shouldn’t be ashamed to be associated with that freedom.
It is time to prosecute every Republican that violates the law. If Romney is not prosecuted for his violation of campaign election law, then the rule of law is not being applied in the United States. If there is no rule of law, none of us is obligated to obey any law, and there is no way to get a fair trial.
Obama has proven to be incredibly pro-business, despite the occasional weak sabre-rattling rhetoric at Wall Street et al. If I was more cynical, I’d say this accounts for his flacidness on the environment too (i.e., Keystone XL, fracking, etc).
It’s only in the eyes of delusional neo-cons that Obama is some kind of socialist redistributer of wealth. He’s, overwhelmingly a moderate, and even fiscally conservative. Of course, he never really sold himself as anything else, so it shouldn’t be too surprising. But this is just the cost of doing business today. I, for one, do not believe a true progressive could ever be nominated, let alone win, simply due to the costs of running a campaign on the national level.
Our “originalist” Supremes have decided that the Framers should have considered corporations as persons, despite the Framers’ distrust of them. It has taken two centuries of judicial activism to fully equate a corporation with homo sapiens.
Campaign money shouldn’t determine the outcome of elections, but it usually does. Most voters are too ignorant to notice that campaign ads are lying to them.
Our democracy is doomed, because the disastrous Citizens United ruling can never be overturned. To do so would require action by the legislative and executive branches, but from this election forward candidates who oppose the ruling will not be elected.
Our government has been bought off by the global corporations and the ultra-wealthy who don’t feel any form of obligation to any one country. Most of these people are not Americans. They don’t care about America at all except for the profits they can generate from it. Right now they’re squeezing all the wealth they can out of us – and doing a very good job.
This is a very old trick. In fact it’s what we’ve been doing for decades to the nations in the southern hemisphere and the middle east.
Look at the model: buy off local officials – make them rich – give them money (we call that “foreign aid”) which they use to buy weapons from us which they use to maintain power and control of the resources – which they sell to us cheap. The strongman’s job: guard the resources and keep the cheap resources flowing to us and kill anyone that gets in the way. It works.
It also very easy to do to the USA. Most people are willing to sell their country for a personal fortune. Our government is filled with them.
The big corporations once played states against each other. Give me a tax break and i’ll move the jobs to your state. No? Raise MY taxes? Ok i’ll move the jobs to another state. It worked. The southern states attracted lots of jobs by diverting federal funds intended for highways and schools etc. into tax breaks for their corporate supporters. That’s what Rick Perry is bragging about all the time.
Since the internet boom the major corporations are doing this to countries. And they’re succeeding with that very well too. And they’re dumping tons of cash into our elections to get their puppets installed.
Other countries – governments – are pumping lots of cash into our elections as well – mostly China. With the laws set up the way they are now it is impossible to tell who or what is supporting any political group or candidate. So I cannot prove that. Does anyone really believe that they would not toss money into our elections? They stand to gain or lose quite a bit! You can’t really blame them.
My point is to point out the dangers of having a political system that cloaks where all the money is coming from. It’s not possible to stop other governments from interfering with our democracy with things like they are now. It’s not possible to stop the rich and powerful folks of the world who don’t care at all about America or the American family or the American worker from interfering with our democracy either.
And that spells disaster for us!