Election 2012
Grass Roots Need Sunlight, Astroturf (Apparently) Does Not
After losing the 2004 Presidential election, a group of us here started a state-registered PAC. The point of the PAC was to find, promote and elect local candidates who share our views.
The PAC works like this: we collect twelve dollars a year from anyone who wants to join. We spend the money to promote the candidates and causes we support. We’re all volunteers.
I’m the treasurer of the PAC. I’m also a lawyer in private practice. In Ohio, I have to file a campaign finance report at least annually but more often quarterly, depending on PAC activity and the number of elections in any given year.
I follow these rules for filing. Because I’m a lawyer, and I’d like to remain one, I also follow these rules. (pdf).
If I don’t meet the filing deadline (which happened, once) I have to file a form to request an extension. I have hand-delivered this extension request to the county Board of Elections because I wanted to see it time-stamped, so I wouldn’t fret all weekend. I have also sat bolt upright in bed trying to recall if I did indeed attach the receipt for the candy we purchased to pass out at a parade, an episode of obsessive second-guessing every lawyer reading this will recognize.
I’m in favor of campaign finance disclosure, and sunshine laws in general, so I do not mind spending the 40 minutes or an hour it takes to compile the report and file it. In fact, our PAC members enthusiastically supported Jennifer Brunner for Secretary of State, and Jennifer Brunner tightened up the disclosure rules. She ran on it.
The PAC filing is a public record, so anyone in this county who wants to know who we are or who and what we’re backing may read the filing. This is a majority Republican county and I live and work here, as do all of the members of the PAC. Every single elected official countywide is a Republican, with the exception of the mayor of an outlying burg and a member of the school board, and all our PAC donors are Democrats.
Having said all that, I read things like this:
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has amended his financial-disclosure forms after a liberal group, Common Cause, said he was failing to report the employment of his wife, conservative activist Virginia Thomas. In filings dated Friday, Justice Thomas asked court officials to amend disclosures going back to 1989, when he served as a federal appellate-court judge. An item on the forms asks judges to disclose any “noninvestment income” for their spouse. The form asks only for the name of the employer or other party paying the spouse and doesn’t seek a dollar figure.
Justice Thomas had checked “none” for that item, but now he wants the forms to reflect the names of the employers for whom Mrs. Thomas worked, including the Heritage Foundation from December 1998 through October 2008 Justice Thomas wrote that the information about his wife’s employment “was inadvertently omitted due to a misunderstanding of the filing instructions.”
Federal campaign spending by groups other than candidates and parties this election cycle has far outpaced similar spending from the last midterm election and could rival the 2008 presidential campaign. But with recent decisions by the Supreme Court and the Federal Elections Commission, it has become harder to know whose dollars they are.
We went from 98% disclosure in 2004 to 32% disclosure in 2010, after Citizens. It sure has become “harder to know”!
I know Justice Thomas’ inadvertent omission isn’t a campaign finance question, but I do wonder where we’re going with this.
Did we reach some anti-transparency political consensus in this country that I somehow missed? Is sunlight not, in fact, the best disinfectant? See, I don’t think we did. I think most people agree that more information is better than less information, when making a decision on elected leaders. Yet, somehow, we ended up with a situation where local, individual activists are named where they live and work, and national corporate and moneyed interests are carefully protected.
It’s just incredibly dispiriting. If the objective here was to create cynicism and hopelessness in individual citizens, we succeeded. That we did that in the name of protecting and promoting political speech is obscene.
Grass Roots Need Sunlight, Astroturf (Apparently) Does NotPost + Comments (29)
Next Up: Poll Taxes
A reader from Wisconsin sent me this Adam Serwer piece:
From the look of it, there is simply no time to lose in Wisconsin to pass the most draconian and disenfranchising voter-identification law in the country (it surpasses even an extremely controversial Indiana law that requires voters to present government-issued photo ID). The new Republican governor in what’s now an all-red state — all three branches of the government are, after the last election, controlled by Republicans — wants immediate action so the voter-ID law can be in place before the April 5 election for the state Supreme Court. Another, related bill would write the voter-ID law into the state constitution.
Former President Bush pursued this voter fraud crisis. So what did his DOJ find?
an intensive five-year investigation by the Department of Justice under George W. Bush famously netted only 86 voter-fraud convictions. Most of these were for offenses like vote-buying schemes or ineligible voters registering to vote — not for voter fraud that could have been prevented by a voter-ID law.
And here’s the U.S. Supreme Court (pdf), when Indiana’s voter ID law came up for review:
Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita has conceded the state has never presented a case of “voter impersonation,” which the law was designed to safeguard against.
Never. Not once. That’s how widespread voter impersonation fraud is: the Indiana Secretary of State couldn’t present a single case. Yet, Indiana insisted they needed a voter ID law, and now Wisconsin does too.
Kevin Kennedy, director of the state Government Accountability Board, said about 20 people were charged with voter fraud after the 2008 election. Most of them were instances of felons voting while still on state supervision.
A voter ID law does absolutely nothing to fix the problem of 20 felons voting while still on state supervision, so why do we need this law, again?
But a photo ID requirement would boost public confidence in state elections, he said.
Oh. Public confidence. Republicans, in cooperation with Fox News, have waged a ten year effort to destroy public confidence in elections by repeatedly making completely unfounded accusations of voter fraud. Now that they’ve succeeded in that effort, they tell us they must pass laws that will disenfranchise legitimate voters to “boost confidence” in elections.
Ohio, oddly enough, had a crisis of public confidence just like this that also arose with Republican control of all statewide offices. We in Ohio managed to protect some voters by insisting on broad definitions of key terms, like “government document”. That definitional safe harbor has been used again and again and again by real live lawful voters in Ohio since Republicans pushed through Ohio’s ID law. They rely on it. It means they can vote.
However, alternate forms of ID, like a “government document”, won’t be available to Wisconsin voters, because the Wisconsin bill would allow most voters to get ballots only after presenting a Wisconsin driver’s license, Wisconsin ID card or military ID card.
They’re fine-tuning voter ID laws to more effectively disenfranchise (certain) voters, with each new law more restrictive than the last. They’re doing this without a shred of evidence of voter impersonation fraud, and the best defense they can come up with is that they seek to “boost public confidence”.
Even Randall Terry’s Given Up on the Repubs
No doubt jealous of all the high-visibility media Fred Phelps has been hogging with threats to picket the funeral of a murdered nine-year-old, “anti-abortion noisemaker” and professional terrorist enabler Randall Terry is making a show of running for President:
… [A]t a press conference held outside the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington today, Terry outlined loftier goals for his run for president, including freeing the tea party movement from leaders he says are intent on shying away from social issues and the humiliation of President Obama in Iowa, the state where his unlikely journey to the White House began in earnest back in 2008.
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“We will focus on a theocentric libertarian platform,” Terry told the crowd of maybe a couple dozen supporters and press.
I’m sure Ross Doubthat already has his credit card out, looking to make the maximum possible donation. If anything could make me feel sorry for libertarians, having Randall Terry claim their kinship would be it.
… Terry is mounting his theocratic political crusade from a Democratic ballot line, challenging Obama for the party’s nomination. As one reporter pointed out at the presser, Terry has described himself as a Republican in the past, and his theocentric libertarian message certainly sounds like it would appeal to Republican voters more than it would Democratic ones. But Terry said running as a Democrat effectively allows him to cut out the middle man when it comes to casting votes against Obama.
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“I don’t want to quarrel with Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee,” Terry said. “I want to focus on the madman, Obama. Obama is the central figure of voter rage. There are people, myself included, who loathe this presidency. By going against him in a Democratic primary, I can focus on him like a laser beam and I will.”
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In the past, Terry has thrown his support behind Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN), who many social conservatives view as their 2012 choice. It’s not clear that Pence will run for the Republican nomination but if he does, Terry can steer clear of tangling with him by running on the Democratic side.
Translation: Sideshow Randy doesn’t want to threaten his permanent meal ticket by drawing untoward comparisons with the burgeoning Repub crop of fools, goons, carnie geeks and professional grifters currently jostling for media attention. As he very well knows, those folks’ supporters have hair-trigger tempers, and the hair triggers to match. (Whoops, uncivil!)
Even Randall Terry’s Given Up on the RepubsPost + Comments (40)
Open Thread: The New Crazification Factor
In an otherwise innocuous column reassessing Palin’s chances for the nomination in 2012, Nate Silver mentions an interesting statistic:
There aren’t a lot of moderates in the Republican base, and their numbers are declining somewhat. But there are some: 27 percent of Republicans identify as either moderate or liberal.
So… has identifying oneself as a Republican if one’s views are other than batshit conservative now indicative of a mild mental disorder?
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Zombie Apocalypse: Return of the Goo-Goos
Recycling gets a bad name because too many well-intentioned people think it involves taking leftover crap nobody wanted in the first place, cutting it into smaller portions, and repackaging it with a stridently ‘better for you, nicer for THE PLANET’ marketing campaign. And there are always grifters looking to use these nice folks’ good intentions for their own ends. This is as true for political movements as it is for motheaten, outdated sweaters or your grandma’s refrigerator casseroles. Witness the new “No Labels” campaign, as described by Slate‘s Christopher Beam:
… A group of political and media A-listers descended on Columbia University Monday morning for the group’s big launch event, which co-founder Mark McKinnon dubbed in his introductory remarks “our little Woodstock of democracy.” No Label seeks to be the voice of reason in an increasingly hyper-partisan environment—a counterweight to interest groups at either end of the political spectrum. Instead of rewarding candidates who spew partisan talking points, No Label says it will raise money for moderate candidates who embrace what co-founder Jon Cowan calls the “three C’s”: co-sponsors, common ground, and civility.
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The guest list at Monday’s confab said as much about the group as its slogan. Attendees were a mix of media commentators (David Brooks, Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski), recent political losers (former Delaware Rep. Mike Castle, former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist), politicians who aren’t seeking re-election (New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh), and moderates who have special permission to buck their party (incoming West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman). In other words, a bunch of people with nothing at stake…
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No Labels sounds noble in theory. But the group misunderstands what bipartisanship is. It’s not two parties deciding to be nice to each other. It’s a moment when their self-interests happen to align—moments that are increasingly rare. Washington does not have a “civility problem.” It has a polarization problem. Politicians aren’t any meaner now than they were 30 years ago. It’s just that over the last few decades, the two parties have become more ideologically coherent…
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“The rest of the country is not hyperpartisan,” McKinnon told the Washington Post. “They say: ‘There’s MoveOn on the left, the tea party on the right and nothing in the middle for me.’ We’re trying to become a microphone for those voices, to create a system that rewards and gives a shout-out for good behavior.” One audience member echoed this point on Monday, arguing that “independents don’t care about labels.” Wrong. Independents pretend not to care about labels. In fact, the vast majority of so-called independents lean toward one party or another. The number of true independents who switch from party to party is 5 percent to 10 percent of the electorate.
That would be “one of the group’s founders, Republican consultant Mark McKinnon“, for those keeping score at home:
…It will form a political action committee to help defend moderate candidates of both parties against attack from the far right and the far left, said John Avlon, a founding member and one-time speechwriter for former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani ( R )…
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Although No Labels bills itself as a citizens’ movement, its leaders are veterans of campaign politics. McKinnon was a senior adviser to President George W. Bush ( R ) and to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) during his 2008 presidential bid. Another co-founder, Nancy Jacobson, is a prominent Democratic fundraiser who worked on Bill Clinton’s presidential campaigns and whose husband, Mark Penn, was the chief strategist for Hillary Rodham Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign. The group’s other founders include Catherine “Kiki” McLean, a longtime Democratic operative and Clinton veteran; William A. Galston, a top Clinton domestic policy aide; and David Frum, a former Bush speechwriter…
Republicans and ex-Clintonistas, spanning the political gamut from far-right to center-right! Hey, no point bothering with ‘unserious’, non-Right points of view, if your whole purpose is to encourage that all-American chimera known as “Centrism”. McKinnon & Mark Penn, together again — and if either one takes you by the hand, be sure to count your fingers afterwards.
Zombie Apocalypse: Return of the Goo-GoosPost + Comments (74)
Open Thread: History Repeating
Dave Weigel, at Slate, with an interesting bit of historical trivia explaining “Why the ‘Liberals Can Mount Primary Challenge to Obama’ Talk Makes No Sense“:
Beware, liberals! Beware the specter of John Ashbrook. As you “murmur” and “bubble” about the bright idea of challenging Barack Obama in the 2012 Democratic presidential primary, remember that there are worse fates than opposing a president and losing. You could always oppose a president and lose so badly that people wonder why they took you seriously in the first place…
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In July 1971, staffers from the American Conservative Union, Human Events, and National Review met at William F. Buckley’s town house to coordinate a conservative break with President Nixon. This was after the president cut defense spending and announced a trip to China. That meeting spun off into anti-Nixon essays, like one from Buckley in the New York Times magazine (“how long… before the American right comes to the conclusion that he is not one of us?”), and eventually it spun off into a movement to draft Ashbrook, an Ohio congressman, into a primary challenge against Nixon.
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“Perhaps this is what the American people want,” Ashbrook thundered as he announced his campaign. “Perhaps, even, he is reflecting the wishes and expressing the judgment of the Republican voters throughout the nation. But I for one do not believe it, and I propose to put the matter to the test in the good old-fashioned democratic way.”
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He did; he lost. He got 9.7 percent of the vote in the New Hampshire primary…
Click the link for more details, enjoyably presented.
Give the Republicans this much credit: they are unsurpassable at flushing their failures down the memory hole. Nobody will ever be allowed to forget the PR “failures” of hapless Democratic candidates like Dukakis or Kerry, but my first reaction to seeing John Ashbrook’s name was “What have FDL’s wounded sensibilities got to do with that old Let-the-Eagle-Fly statuary-defacer?”