Russ Feingold thinks Democrats should raise money on “people power” and not fund “superPACs” that take corporate donations in the same way that Crossroads GPS does.
I’m as disgusted by Citizens United as anyone, but this is the kind of thinking that just kills Democrats. First, nobody really cares if Democrats follow a different, more pristine set of campaign finance rules. There’s a ton of corporate money in politics today, and Citizens United puts even more money into play. That money has and will influence races. The solution isn’t to create new rules that make Democrats even more likely to lose to Republicans, by having them go into a fight with one hand tied behind their backs.
Probably less important but more maddening is how this kind of informal rule-making turns into a distraction. We see this all the time in races where Republicans and media, for whom the cheap “hypocrisy” story line is endlessly seductive, band together to make the Democratic candidate who supports campaign finance reform look like a hypocrite for taking corporate donations. It’s hard enough for candidates to explain how they can hope for a future without huge corporate donations, but they have to live in a present where these donations are a fact of life. A new set of informal campaign finance rules gives media and opponents a whole host of new ways to call the Democratic candidate a hypocrite for getting the support of Democratic superPACS, at the same time that the Republican candidate welcomes millions of dollars of superPAC advertising.
If Russ wants to do something about campaign finance, he should run for the Wisconsin open Senate seat and get a bill through Congress after he’s elected.
Bob
Great band. Reminds me, a lot, of Jesus and Mary Chain.
Jounalmalist
I think Feingold’s point is that unfettered, unaccountable monies delivered to Dems might serve the interests of individual candidates, but will necessarily push actual policy making further to the right (i.e., corporate interests almost always conflict with progressive goals). He’s not being high-minded or declining on principle, he’s saying that the Nader nightmare will be realized if “both sides do it.” I don’t think he’s wrong about that.
arguingwithsignposts
Hmmm. I wonder why he’s out there now talking about campaign finance reform and not in the Senate doing something about it. {tapping foot}. I seem to recall he held some other elected office recently. Wonder what that was?
Albatrossity
If we ever want campaign finance reform (and I think that this is the key to getting our country back from the galtians) we’ll need to have elected officials who are not indebted to corporations. Someone elected with that kind of funding will never vote to end that kind of funding. Feingold is right.
Alex S.
These guys don’t know what they’re up against. And Feingold is an expert at doing useless vanity actions.
Jennifer
Glad to see I’m just parroting the majority line (so far) on this.
Once upon a time, Democrats became convinced that the way to compete was to chase the same corporate cash that was funding the Republicans, and what we ended up with was a party that abandoned the unions and the working and middle classes so it could serve the same interests the Republicans cater to, except only not as well. Which left the Democrats still at a funding disadvantage and the unions and ordinary citizens with no one to represent them. Some would say we’ve never recovered from that. I would say we’re not likely to, if the Democrats continue to view their only chance at electoral success as being the party that only gives wealthy and corporate interests most of what they want, rather than all of what they want. They’ll either become indistiguishable from the Republicans in order to compete more successfully for that sweet, sweet campaign cash, or they’ll continue on at a funding disadvantage with the folks who do most of the campaign financing, while at the same time alienating the masses who might otherwise collectively fund their campaigns and go out of business.
Then again, I’m convinced that things have already gone too far for this broken country to ever be fixed, so it doesn’t really matter.
amk
Didn’t that guy get his ass kicked recently standing on “I’m teh purest, vote for me” ?
WereBear
The money got so big because advertising, in the television era, cost so much. The corporations who own media outlets love this; the rest of us suffer.
The only campaign finance reform that matters is cutting money out of the equation. There has to be an actual level playing field that restricts anything not out of reach of any candidate.
Selling the candidate like fast food only works for corporations; not democracy.
emma
The problem about “people power” in politics is that in order to win with only “the people” you have to keep them engaged on a daily basis for years. People don’t do that. They think about politics when an election heats up. Most of the people I know away from the internet political bubble are too busy trying to survive. They start paying attention as the elections come near.
The Republicans do better at keeping the crazy engaged because they march in lockstep behind a perpetual rage machine that took decades to create, and a corporate press that would like us to believe they are impartial. Democrats are not an organized political party in that fashion. Even in Congress they step on each other, rather than keep to the message or help the President’s agenda. Under those circumstances, even if we developed a “people’s political fund” I’m not sure I trust the DNC to distribute money where it should go.
I don’t have an answer, and I think it will be a long time and take a major shift in how the political news are covered in this country to change it. Good luck to us all.
Xenos
Feingold has a point. And while the corporations have a lot of money, the public has more.
We will never out-raise corporate cash. So we need to give people another reason to vote for us, and that includes being more legit and, er, pure, than the republicans.
Democrat vs. Democrat battles over purity are ridiculous. But Democrats have to define what they are for, and to go out and sell it, and to build a social as well as a political movement. Democratic super-pacs undermine that process.
mem from somerville
I also find it really distasteful for Dems to eat their own, helping Republicans by taking aim at people is tough states. Like 350.org going after Brown. Yes, you may remember the false poutrage this week over the Scott Brown MBTA ad. But they are also going after Sherrod Brown.
Why is 350.org going after Sen. Sherrod Brown?
Is this really the most constructive thing for climate activists to do? Really?
Shazza
Emma-EXACTLY.
Nic
@WereBear
Delicious
Ronbo
Love Russ; but, you fight fire with fire.
Unfortunately, when you adopt the same Republican-style fundraising, you often become what you originally organized against. Good people are merely co-opted and become corporate-centered (Reagan-Republicans). They adopt corporate-centered philosophy. They support corporate-friendly legislation. They become a Clinton or an Obama: of, by and for the wealthy and powerful. To hell with citizen-centered Democracy; corporate-centered Democracy becomes wholesale business!
If citizens aren’t the center, it’s not Democracy.
burnspbesq
So Democrats should unilaterally disarm? Would one of you proponents of this please explain how it leads to anything other than a Permanent Republican Majority.
gnomedad
@werebear:
The irony is that while the internet has made it practically free to have your message out there, you still need the big bucks to get attention.; attention being the one thing inevitably in short supply.
Davis X. Machina
Perhaps if people were organized in some way — say, connected with their workplaces — they could all combine their much smaller contributions through those organizations into more respectable sums. And that way the people interested in the nuts and bolts of politics could politic and the rest could get on with their lives.
Such associations would be also really useful when it came to workplace issues like pay, benefits, and working conditions.
And the associations could combine together into national organizations to apply pressure on issues like worker safety, and trade policy.
I wonder why no one’s gotten these up and running earlier.
Leah
What Xenos said; those arguments about “purity” come from both sides within the left – i.e., it’s silly for people here to write off Feingold as a purist. He’s still an important voice on our side, and he could get his Senate seat back.
The real point about campaign finance laws is that they didn’t work. There are simply too many ways for Republicans and the right in this country to subvert whatever legal framework is thrown up to limit the influence of money in elections. They have no respect for elections, no commitment to the notion that it’s important for everyone to vote – quite the opposite, and they’ve come to represent exclusively monied America – those are very top.
We need a deeper level of reform. We need public financing of elections. And yes, that is a very long-range goal, but we should be starting to work on it now. And as people around this country find it more and more difficult even to vote because of Republican voter ID lows, there is going to be more and more of a constituency ready to sign on to the notion that the only way to get our country back is to squeeze the corrupting influence of money out of our elections.
Not campaign finance reform any more – give us publicly financed elections without which neither liberty nor our democratic republic can exist in any genuine sense.
There is an excellent documentary you can get from Netflix called “Uncounted” which documents the uncounted votes in the 2004 election, and the various ways Republican public officials contrived to limit Democratic voting. The most impressive part of the film is the testimony of ordinary Americans after having witnessed actual suppression of voting – all of them were furious and ready to fight for the right to vote in free and fair elections.
John Emerson
The problem with playing the big-money game is that there’s always a payoff required. No one gives $100,000 without asking for something. The Democrats have already played the game for a long time, and that’s why they’re Republicans lite.
The trouble with playing the little-money game is that it’s labor-intensive and not enough people want to give. It only really works if the little people also volunteer their time and make up an unpaid campaign force.
If there really were 5 million committed liberals, and they gave the average of $10/ month, that’s $600 million. That’s real money, unencumbered by promises to millionaires, anwould be especially effective if these same 5 million liberals were also campaigning locally.
That hasn’t happened, except in a dozen or two big cities. It didn’t happen in Wisconsin in 2008, the opposite happened and Feingold was defeated. Besides the $$ advantage and the media advantage, the Rs seem to have an enthusiasm and mobilization advantage.
One negative factor I’ll throw out: a lot of liberal money goes to single issue causes or to charities (eg homelessness, hunger) instead of to candidates. Most single issue causes are doomed if Republicans are in power, and individual charities would be less necessary if they were booted out too. (And many nice people on the center-left are reluctant to donate to a cause that creates conflict, so they donate non-controversially to feelgood stuff).
Note: the Republicans are bad, but the Democrats aren’t necessarily good. Conservatives had the right idea: the Koches and Armey and Norquist and Ralph Reed don’t give money to the Republican Party, they give money to individual Republicans who agree with them, and they punish defectors. In many respects the Republican Party is now under the control of these outside groups.
Xenos
Democrats should not unilaterally disarm. But they should not arm themselves the same way as the Republicans, especially when fighting with the same type of armaments means that we are forced to fight on ground of their choosing, to their advantage.
We need better tools, better arms. In a nutshell, that means organizing. Republicans are great at selling to consumers. But that is what they make of their supporters – consumers, just another group of sheep for Madison Avenue executives to shear.
Democrats should not follow the GOP advertising-and-propaganda strategy; we will never outspend them, and we will never be good at it because we do not want to be sheep and to talk to one another as sheep, and to be treated like sheep. That means we play another game, something more like the institution-building game the religious wingnuts have been working for 40 years.
A version of this was tried with the Netroots. Unfortunately this has lead to firebaggers, HuffPo huffers and Totebaggers working at cross purposes and ever greater silliness. It is time to step up the work, somehow.
Xenos
Think of how core movements and goals among the cultural right wing have been articulated and fought for over the last few decades. Democrats need to similarly work out a few basic, easily articulated goals and to work systematically for them, and make that work the basis for local organizing. Understand this is a multi-decade process, and ignore the trendy lefties whenever possible.
Tyro
We will never out-raise corporate cash. So we need to give people another reason to vote for us, and that includes being more legit and, er, pure, than the republicans.
I, for one, would never vote for one party over another because of their perception of being more “pure” when it came to campaigning.
Not only should Democrats not unilaterally disarm, they should take the SuperPACs to such extremes that it either (a) allows them to dominate the fundraising process, or (b) offends the Republicans so much that they agree to roll back citizens united and the things that make SuperPACs possible.
Tyro
In a nutshell, that means organizing.
Let me be the first to say it: fuck organizing. Fuck this bullshit totem that every single liberal loves to wave around as a magic solution.
“Organizing” always seems to mean, “find a bunch of otherwise busy people and guilt them into making futile political efforts all the time when they would otherwise be focusing on their jobs or how to pay their rent, generally leaving the only people left to be gadlies and annoying people.” Seriously, fuck that. You want people to be “organized” against Republicans? Hire a bunch of people whose job it is to do that. Build an infrastructure of organizations focused on these things. Have a national infrastructure that keeps people engaged and makes it easier to put the pressure on the opposition.
“Organizing”? What’s your problem? You think I don’t have better things to do than attend a planning meeting where everyone has a “dialog”?
mk3872
That is too funny. Feingold stands-up as an example of what happens when you DON’T play the corporate $$ game: YOU LOSE, and tells the audience “do what I did … AND LOSE”!
I’m sure he’s making GREAT progress toward campaign finance reform as an unemployed ex-Senator speaking @ NN.
amk
Look at all the corporate ‘hoods’ people voted as govnor in recent times – christie, walker, kasich, scott. And yet mr purity, whose senate record as a ‘progressive’ stinks, is all about “people power”.
Xenos
Who said that professionals should not be doing most of the work? But if the main way to raise money involves tying the party to corporate interests you are going to end up with situations like we have now, where Obama may not find the same sort of financial support from the public that he got last time around.
I would love to proved wrong on this, but it is not just the firebaggers who are feeling cynical and disappointed now.
PanAmerican
Sure it would be a disaster for the party, but it would make it rain for Markos, Jane, Duncan, etc. which is to say, the former Senator fed his audience the line of bullshit they wanted to hear.
Tyro
Obama may not find the same sort of financial support from the public that he got last time around.
One of Obama’s big errors, which look forward to reading about why in some operative’s memoirs 10 years from now, was basically dismantling Obama for America after the inauguration. This could have been turned into a huge pressure group with hundreds of thousands of ready and willing volunteers, but all of that got shut off.
Comrade Carter
Yes, he’s cleaner than clean.
As a Socialist who votes for the Democratic Party, consider me the thankful one next to you in WI-5 that I don’t have to waste another vote on Russ.
What a complete poltroon.
Mr Furious
The problem is that Feingold is fantasizing about a “perfect world” with this bullshit. He should know better than most the futility of his stance since his ass is still swollen from where it recently bit him.
Going into the next cycle dreaming of a citizen-funded landslide is particularly foolish. People are broke and angry with the party. They are likely to be just as broke and even angrier in another year.
General Stuck
The only organizing that is needed is for people to organize their own lazy asses to get offin them and go vote for their best interest in high numbers.
It will not be conferences on “messaging” better, or gestures of ideological purity that turns that worm. It will be pain that wakes up the deep apathetic slumber this country has fallen into.
The reason dems can’t unilaterally disarm in the reality that is Citizens United, is that in the short term, they will lose elections. And the wingnuts will see to it that the country is no longer fixable toward anything like any degree of socioeconomic justice, if it isn’t already un fixable. We just can’t afford to let those insane fuckers run the whole show again for even a day.
At some point, if their isn’t a threshold point of the bulk of Americans waking up to the reality of corruption in the realm from top to bottom, then it won’t matter anyway. We were doomed from the git go.
I think there is that threshold point of personal deprivations that stimulates the survival instinct in even the most clueless soul of the suburban jungle, that something needs doing to take money out of elections and governing, at least to the degree public financing would, and a constitutional amendment becomes at least feasible. Though I haven’t a clue of where that threshold point is, or if it will end up coming too late.
Lydgate
Hedges Ahead
That’s weird. I guess we’ve established that the existing campaign finance bill, the one with his name on it, isn’t working any more? And his getting elected to Senate will what, let him have another stab at it? Because there’s such a greater appetite for CamFinRef now, than back in 2002?
I mean, I was of the understanding that campaign financing, as it exists now, grew directly out of McCain-Feingold? Citizen’s United only came into play in 2010 really, so I don’t see how you can blame them for the other 8 years of any workable bill being passed.
Mr Furious
Tyro, Obama could have personally called every member of the organization after the inauguration and invited them to continue, and we’d still be in exactly the same place. Relying on the permanent focused attention and generosity of individuals–especially in a prolonged recession, never mind the best of times–is never going to compete with the bottomless pockets and quarterly motivation of corporate interests who employ armies of highly-paid lobbyists to stay in the ears of pols.
What happened in 2008 is not going to happen in 2012 no matter how much liberal ass Obama kissed in January 2009 or for the next year.
John Emerson
Which big-money corporations are going to give us tons of money to do anything but continue on the destructive path we’re already on? The Democrats are already in hock to the big money, they don’t need to be more so.
Let me be the first to say it: fuck organizing. Fuck this bullshit totem that every single liberal loves to wave around as a magic solution.
Let me be the first to say this: fuck you, Tyro. You really think that all we need to do is find the right big-bucks people to make everything all right while we sit on our asses.
There’s the key right there. The conservatives outwork the liberals, because liberals are lazy and want to sit on their fat asses. Political work doesn’t have enough entertainment value for liberals, whereas it’s actually more fun than going to church. You really can’t weld pigs into a political movement.
The conservative Democrats have always been there (there were plenty of anti-FDR Democrats, though they laid low 1934-1938). By and large conservatives have controlled the Democratic Party. When they didn’t, it was because of pressure from groups outside the party: Populists and other third parties, progressives, the civil rights movement, militant unions, etc. But those groups don’t exist today.
In Wisconsin in 2008 the conservatives mobilized and the liberals didn’t, and Feingold lost. That’s a very grim message and the problem isn’t Feingold.
John Emerson
Relying on the permanent focused attention and generosity of individuals—especially in a prolonged recession, never mind the best of times—is never going to compete with the bottomless pockets and quarterly motivation of corporate interests who employ armies of highly-paid lobbyists to stay in the ears of pols.
During the depression it was possible to organize impoverished individuals.
If the only answer is begging for corporate dollars, there’s no answer. The Democrats will continue to be the #2 big-money party, not quite as bad as #1. This isn’t purism, this is just recognizing the payoffs involved.
If your only concern is replacing Rs with Ds, Tyro is 100% right. But if you’re concerned with a range of issues, he’s 100% wrong.
Three-nineteen
Wow. Everyone on this site followed the Wisconsin Congressional Senate race really closely last year, huh? So they know that Feingold lost because of three things:
1) His opponent spent almost $4 million of his own money on the campaign. Feingold’s not a millionaire, so he couldn’t do that, but he raised more than Johnson and only spent about $1 million less.
2) Since Citizen’s United overturned McCain-Feingold (fuck you, mistermix for that crack), outside money spent $1 million for Johnson and another $1 million against Feingold.
3) It was 2010. Wisconsin voted for a lot of assholes in 2010. Feingold would have been re-elected easily in 2008, and probably 2012. He got hit by a bad election cycle.
Feingold managed to win three Senate races without using corporate money, which by my count is at least two more than anyone on this thread. He’s on your side, people – try to remember that. Jesus – talk about purity trolls.
Bonus troll points for using the phrase “bring a knife to a gun fight” and any of the other arguments used to defend torture a couple of years ago.
Three-nineteen
I’m going to repeat something I said in my earlier post:
FEINGOLD WON THREE SENATE RACES WITHOUT USING CORPORATE MONEY.
So he may just know what he’s talking about.
Personally, I hope he runs for governor instead of the US Senate. I think he can do a lot more good here in the state.
tyro
Actually, “organizing” is the buzzword for e dry lazy liberal unwilling to get off their asses. It’s like the magic solution to every massive problem: “well what we have to do is ORGANIZE!” No. What we need is competent leadership and infrastructure. Those of you with a fantasy of leading a bunch of marching goal miners into an array of Pinkerton goons need to grow up and find something useful to think about, not trying to relive a Woody Guthrie album. Chanting “organize” over and over again instead of coming up with an actual solution doesn’t help anyone.
John Emerson
Relying on the permanent focused attention and generosity of individuals—especially in a prolonged recession, never mind the best of times—is never going to compete with the bottomless pockets and quarterly motivation of corporate interests who employ armies of highly-paid lobbyists to stay in the ears of pols.
I just have to repeat that. The game has always been popular mobilization against the money power, back to 1896, and two different people here have taken firm stands against mobilization. It’s always been an uphill battle and there have been more defeats than victories, but without mobilization you cn’t win.
Sugar daddy leftism isn’t going to go anywhere.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
And he lost a fourth because the Wisconsin voters were replaced by mirror image counterparts?
Three-nineteen
The Sheriff’s A Ni- @39:
1) His opponent spent almost $4 million of his own money on the campaign. Feingold’s not a millionaire, so he couldn’t do that, but he raised more than Johnson and only spent about $1 million less.
2) Since Citizen’s United overturned McCain-Feingold (fuck you, mistermix for that crack), outside money spent $1 million for Johnson and another $1 million against Feingold.
3) It was 2010. Wisconsin voted for a lot of assholes in 2010. Feingold would have been re-elected easily in 2008, and probably 2012. He got hit by a bad election cycle.
John Emerson
Tyro, we’ve had competent Democratic leadership all along. Obama won the election. We control the Senate. 3 of the last 5 Presidents have been Democrats, 4 out of 6 if Obama squeaks by, and Congress has been more Democratic than Republican. The Democratic pros have been OK on putting Ds on the board.
But the pros give us Clintons and Obamas and Liebermans and Baucuses. If that’s fine with you, then you and I have nothing much to argue about. There are two arguments going on here, one about the direction of the party and one about how to win elections.
I’m still wondering which sugardaddies you expect to find who haven’t already been approached. Obama raised close to a billion dollars for a single campaign. It’s not like the Democrats have been trying to get by on nickles and dimes.
The real insanity of everything you’ve said, though, is that you don’t even seem to want any organizing at all. It’s like the idea offends you in some way. The possibility of a mixed approach was always there, but apparently you find that inconceivable.
Carol from CO
Andrew Romanoff, who was the progressive favorite, played Feingold’s game in the 2010 CO Dem senate primary. He actually sold his house when he ran out of money from other sources. I thought he was very pure and idealistic, but basically stupid.
tomvox1
I don’t see why broadcast outlets can’t be forced into a “common good” fee structure for political ads. The fact that campaigns are obliged to raise obscene amounts of money so that TV stations can make a killing every election cycle (even though stations are theoretically required to apply their lowest unit charge…which can be manipulated upward in campaign season) does not seem like the greatest service to democracy. If the TV money was diminished from that expenditure equation, I think politicians would be able to be less whore-like.
This ’07 Durbin/Specter/Feingold/Obama idea taxing 2% of broadcasters’ overall ad revenue to pay for federal candidates’ advertising, as well as reduce the political rate by 20%, seemed like a decent start. I’m sure it died a silent death.
Tyro
Look , guys, maybe you haven’t noticed, but there is never going to be any grassroots movement of concerned citizens who are going to get out and march in favor of campaign finance reform. It’s just not going to happen. The only people who care are earnest good government types and corporate interests who want to exploit the system for their own purposes. The solution is not showing “people power is better!” The solution is to exploit superPACs so completely and maliciously against republicans than republican politicians are willing to agree to reform the law because it will be in their own interests to do so. A good example would be what the Republicans did with the Independent Counsel law. The proper buzzword isn’t “organize,” it’s “escalate.”
General Stuck
Thank you for stating this truth on the argument. I don’t think dems should take any more corporate or special interest cash than is necessary to buffer the advantage the wingers will surely have on CU cash into the election system.
A couple of other bottom lines apply as well. One is you can’t do anything about realizing your issues if you don’t get elected. And the second, ceding ground in CU cash department taken to the degree of handing the wingnuts the levers of power over high minded ideals, will not be a benign exercise. Even more very real damage will be done whilst they are in charge.
I fall on the getting elected side first, but only playing by the new CU cash rules to the degree necessary to remain competitive. And I don’t see how not doing so is remotely sane in the real world.
Tyro
Earnest liberals telling us that the solution is always to “organize” reminds me a bit of fundie talk about the rapture. It’s an attempt to avoid grappling with our modern problems in the hope of a salvation fantasy in which all the working people are “organized.”
Davis X. Machina
Broadcasters certainly could — if the legislative will was there.
But not cable-only operations.
They don’t use any part of the commons — the airwaves. It would be very, very difficult to get at them without tearing up the First Amendment.
Admiral_Komack
Maybe Saint Russ is campaigning to become The Progressive Left’s newest hero after Weiner petered out.
John Emerson
Look , guys, maybe you haven’t noticed, but there is never going to be any grassroots movement of concerned citizens who are going to get out and march in favor of campaign finance reform. It’s just not going to happen.
Well, you’re talking out of your ass as far as predicting the future, but I’ll grant that it hasn’t been happening. It strikes me as marginally more likely than the sugar daddy liberals you’re dreaming of. It’s like the underpants gnome joke. Your ending is right — “Rich people give us billions” — but where’s your middle? Who are these people? Why would they give us billions? It’s not like the Democrats haven’t been out there with their begging bowls all along.
Without one or another, we’re fucked, and maybe that means that we’re fucked. It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to deliver any optimism.
Mobilization is necessary, in my view. If it’s not possible, as you seem convinced, then we’re in very bad shape. Proving that something isn’t possible doesn’t prove that it isn’t necessary, it just tells you that you’re pretty bad off.
It strikes me that your dream of organization-free liberal politics paid for by enormous sums of money from unknown sources comes from a schematic dream world unrelated to anything in actual political history, and is primarily motivated mostly by your personal feelings about mobilization. Granted that you are apparently a clueless imbecile, I find your insulting tone highly inappropriate and think that your mommy should spank you.
John Emerson
Who are the people on this thread? I’m not a regular here, but this has been bizarre. Live and learn, I guess.
boss bitch
OFA was not dismantled. Its been there pushing and calling for the support of items on Obama’s agenda. It was built to get him elected and is now being used to get him reelected. In between they made calls and pushed to get votes for bills and issues that he supported. I don’t understand why anyone thought OFA was supposed to be some leftie organization that should take on every liberal cause or basically do the job of actual liberal organizations. It belongs to Obama and the Democratic party. not that I’m complaining.
John Emerson
OFA recruited people into the Obama-Democratic by raising various kinds of expectations and hopes, so if it had been a real grass-roots organization it would have been quite reasonable for OFA to pressure Obama to meet those expectations. But it was really a totally-owned subsidiary of Obama’s campaign.
John Emerson
Independence from the party and from the candidates is the key for any group that is trying to do anything mor than to change Rs to Ds and change the names on the brass plates. This is true both for grass-roots groups and for money groups. Norquist, Armey, and the others know this, and they’re effective. A lot of people in OFA didn’t understand this, and they got burned.
Jewish Steel
The Democratic party that is adversarial to US business interests is the cousin to the Democratic dove president. And desirable only if you are looking at things through the tiniest ideological lens.
John Emerson
WTF are you trying to say, JS? Are bigger ideological lenses better or something?
Journalmalist
@ mem from somerville:
350.org is a single-issue (albeit, a vast and complex one) activist group. Brown cast a crappy industry-friendly vote — and if you follow the money you can see why. Climate activists are perfectly correct to go after whoever is corn-holing the environment. Why should they go after the Republican and ignore the Democrat?
John Emerson
Even Republicans sometimes have doubts about the power of money: http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2006/01/13/3188/k-street-project/
burnspbesq
@tomvox:
The broadcasters will lobby the living shit out of the FCC, and if the FCC puts that rule into effect, they will (1) go to the D.C. Circuit and argue that air time is “property” that can’t be taken for public use without just compensation and (2) lobby Congress to de-fund enforcement of the rule.
I don’t think that’s the right answer, and you probably don’t either, but it’s not hard to construct a decent argument for that position, and I’m certainly not sanguine about what might happen at the D.C. Circuit or on the Hill.
PanAmerican
As long as the Democratic party petit-bourgeois get wobbly at the thought of political machines the only alternative is cubic dollars.
Johannes
Folks, Citizens United is an interpretation of the First Amendment by a radical Court, which built off the much earlier decisions which equated giving cash with speech for First Amendment purposes. (It’s not; its conduct with an expressive component, like burning a flag, which can be regulated as long as the regulations leave meaningful room for the speech and are viewpoint neutral). That’s why McCain-Feingold was so easily circumvented; it was an effort to work around the fundamental problem created by the Court in Buckley v. Valeo, back in 1976. (The Brennan Center did a great collection of essays in the 90s called If Buckley fell; they have put out a new one responding to CU as well, Money, Politics and the Constitution: Beyond Citizens United).
That’s why unilateral disarmament, appealing though it is, is essentially suicidal–CU and Buckley aren’t going anywhere soon, and, frankly, our political culture is now at the stage where the only restraints are legal restraints.
Tom Q
“FEINGOLD WON THREE SENATE RACES WITHOUT USING CORPORATE MONEY.
So he may just know what he’s talking about.”
Two of them by the skin of his teeth — including 1998, a good Democratic year where people like Patty Murray and Barbara Boxer were thought vulnerable but skated to easy re-election. They both also held onto their seats in 2010 despite the hostile climate, while Feingold lost decisively.
The party needs to be able to start with certain seats taken for granted, or at least leaning their direction, to be able to concentrate on gains elsewhere. Feingold’s purity made his seat a toss-up most every time, and consumed attention that might better have been used on other races (like, say, IL and PA, nearby races which both went GOP in squeakers last time out).
Feingold is what someone I know used to call a Process Progressive — he wants politics to resemble high school civics class, and, as long as he gets some semblance of that, electoral/legislative outcomes are secondary to him. Screw that. I want Dems who fight fire with fire, and offset the damage the Republicans have been doing to this country for 30 years. There are limits, of course…but matching your opponents’ war chests as much as you can doesn’t see to me to go over the line.
Yutsano
@Tom Q:
Everyone and their dog likes to think Patty Murray is perennially in trouble come election time, yet even last year in a really bad year for Democrats she easily won. But her entire political career has existed on her being grossly underestimated.
John Emerson
Who are these progressive billionaires? If they existed we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. Soros, and then who?
Feingold was also a progressive who took progressive stands on issues where realists like Baucus and Feinstein were double-crossing the electorate. But again, if you’re fine with Baucus and Feinstein, big money is the way to go. If it’s just the “D” you want, that’s the ticket.
TK-421
I didn’t hear Feingold’s comments directly, so the nuance and emphasis is lost on me. But…I think the most important point he made that is getting lost in this moderate vs. progressive debate is that “Democrats can’t win” if they try to get the same cash through the same pipelines that Republicans do.
I (and some other commenters here) agree with that sentiment, but not for “purity” reasons. For me, it’s basic marketing- if you’re a “me too” product, you’ll never be #1. Never. Moderates are fooling themselves if they think Dems can consistently earn the same or more contributions from SuperPACs that Republicans do. That is a shockingly foolish thing to think, and yet many people are advocating for that nonetheless.
When you are going against a competitor that will always have better/more access to regular funding, the solution is to find an alternate source of funding (and hope like hell your product or service catches on). Don’t let Feingold (or Dean’s or whomever’s) flowery language fool you- this is business.
I fail to see how going after the same sources of money as Republicans will result in Democrats having equal or superior funds. And, well, isn’t that the whole point? This is a game that Democrats can’t win, and therefore it’s perfectly reasonable to suggest they play a different game. That’s not “purity,” that’s just common sense.
I would really like someone to explain how Democrats are going to beat Republicans at the money game without either A) never quite getting as much as Republicans or B) becoming indistinguishable from Republicans. I don’t think it can be done.
John Emerson
“Purity” is just a smear word being thrown at Feingold by “realists” who are out of touch with reality, sitting at home waiting for those unicorn millionaires and ponies.
Whiskey Screams from a Guy With No Short-Term Memory
Fuck Feingold. He is an unprincipled purity troll with a decades-long track record of failing to do anything whatsoever for liberal causes.
mem from somerville
@Journalmalist: that vote had ZERO impact on the environment. It did not pass. It didn’t even have a shot at passing. It’s pure poutrage by 350.org.
Are there seriously no better ways to spend money than on a guy who supported the EPA’s regulation of greenhouse gasses? In times when money is tight, attacking Sherrod Brown would be at the very bottom of the list of any sane person.