SuperPac spends 14 million against Gingrich in FL

B

Bevo Incognito

5,000+ Posts
They just said on ABC news that Superpacs have spent 14 million dollars on attack ads against Gingrich.

14 million dollars! In one state! Poor Florida!

Is this what we want out of our political process?
 
To me the point is that campaign victories can be bought and sold by corporations or anyone with money. Yeah, we as consumers vote with our dollars, but there is something to be said about all men being created equal- meaning, the guy who makes 50,000/year has the same size vote as the guy who makes 5,000,000/year.

At least that's how it used to be pre-Supreme Court decision enabling Super Pacs.
 
Geez McBrett, don't you know that corporations are people too?
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This is an obvious area where we need campaign finance reform. Unfortunately this has been going on for awhile on the state level and we have many judges who have been elected in a large part due to this type of money. Now they are ruling in favor of the corporate entities in areas where they have been unable to get the legislation written the way they want it.
 
I'd love to see changes made but do agree that it would be extremely hard to regulate - especially given free speech issues. The last attempt (was it McCain-Feingold) just created a whole new mess with the superpacs.
 
Very true. I bet you could convince people that buy voting for a certain candidate they would not have to worry about their mortgage or their car payment.
 
If you don't have a huge number of very rich people backing you, your voice does not get heard.

But let's not call that class war; it is only class war if the poor or middle class do it.
 
I am asking because i really don't know.
It was reported at rthe time that unions gave 400 million to Obama's presidential election. Super pacs certainly existed in 08. one example was a Soros Super pac, a smaller one was swiftboats in 04

So what did the SCOTUS citizens united decision change?
 
The Supreme Court decision really didn't change much from a practical standpoint. You could argue it actually increased transparency into the system.

Bottom line, the money spent is uncontrolable. Put a few regualtions in there to make yourself fel better and then let the process run its course. It is impossible to curtail the spending.

Now I agree with BI that it would be much preferable to not have money such a big part of elections. I just see no way to prevent it. It is going to get in, I think you try and make it transparent, if you can.
 
OK
so reading Mich's link Pacs that existed in 04 and08 etc could spend unlimited funds.
But if I read this correctly the Super Pac are just like PACS except they can't donate directly to a candidate.
Maybe i am wrong?
this
" Unlike traditional PACs, Super PACs are prohibited from donating money directly to political candidates."
So the difference is not how much money they can spend.
Unless there is something else it is hard to say the SCOTUS decision make things worse
 
Honestly the more I think about the whole super pac setup, the more I'm convinced lawmakers wanted it so they could basically have the same situation they had before but now be able to wash their hands of the mud-slinging. In fact, it's probable that campaigns got even nastier now largely because the campaigns now don't have any real control over them and can always respond with "I don't like the add and have requested that it be taken down." Hey, once that ad has hit a few times, it's done its damage and removal doesn't help at all.

The issue to me has nothing to do with money and everything to do with accountability.
 
I'd love to make these "super pacs" go away. I'd like to do the same to Moveon.org and their ilk. I just don't know how that could be done.
 
Well that's the problem - a lot of it is really just shifting from pile A to pile B.

This is actually a really good discussion. How would you design a system that is fair, honors free speech and still controls "undue" influence. Not sure I have an answer, but I think that ultimately it needs to all come from the campaign - not third parties.

I don't think limiting contributions work (they just get broken up and funneled through individuals). If not for that, I would be interested in requiring registration for all donors contributing more than $500 or so - but again, that's easy to skirt.

I'm not opposed to a spending limit, but I don't know how to get to that reasonably. And I would love to see all sitting representatives have a set annual travel allowance that they are able to spend to run normal business, and anything beyond that must be paid for by their re-election committee. (That may be in place already, but I doubt it's enforced with much vigilance.)
 
the guy who makes 50,000/year has the same size vote as the guy who makes 5,000,000/year.

At least that's how it used to be pre-Supreme Court decision enabling Super Pacs.
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now the corporations have the same power as unions. at least it is all equal now. who watches and pays attention to political adds anyway? doesnt everyone have tivo now to ff commercials? the guy making 50k has the same vote as the guy making a million and there are more 50k guys than millionaires so you have to guess they are going to vote similarly.
 
When one considers that 40% of voters will vote for BHO while another 40% will vote against him, it makes no sense for the President to spend a billion dollars just to influence 20% of the voting public.
 
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