Salon.com > Super PAC

Billionaires now own American politics

Thu, 16 May 2013 17:47:00 +0000

Billionaires with an axe to grind, now is your time. Not since the days before a bumbling crew of would-be break-in artists set into motion the fabled Watergate scandal, leading to the first far-reaching restrictions on money in American politics, have you been so free to meddle. There is no limit to the amount of money you can give to elect your friends and allies to political office, to defeat those with whom you disagree, to shape or stunt or kill policy, and above all to influence the tone and content of political discussion in this country.

Big Money lost the battle, but the war goes on

Fri, 09 Nov 2012 16:20:00 +0000

“Never before has so much political money been spent to achieve so little,” the Washington Post’s Dan Eggen and T.W. Farnam wrote in their big A1 story yesterday. “Spending by outside groups, it turns out, was the dog that barked but did not bite.” You can find a similar narrative in the New York Times, Politico, the Wall Street Journal and pretty much everywhere else.

And indeed, Tuesday was a terrible no good awful night for most of the biggest super PACs and other assorted "outside" groups, as most of them are Republican-aligned and Republicans lost big. Hundreds of millions of dollars down the drain and with nothing to show for it.

Newt’s revolting appeal to voters

Fri, 26 Oct 2012 15:45:00 +0000

Mix together every right-wing fever dream of the Obama era, add some apocalyptic b-roll and epic music, and bake for three minutes in Newt Gingrich-style grandiosity and you get this amazing new ad from the super PAC that supported Gingrich, which apparently still exists. If every other ad of the cycle was a music video, this ad is "Thriller."

The video is an imagining of what another four years under Obama would look like, and it’s not too rosy. Picture turning the whole country into blighted Detroit while gays run wild and churches are converted to mosques. There are lots and lots of riots. Riots in the inner cities (naturally), riots in the Middle East, riots at gas stations, riots in supermarkets, riots in the hospital over Obamacare. Fortunately, Obama appears to have implemented martial law so there's plenty of riot cops too. Meanwhile, gay men get married -- to each other! -- in modest little ceremonies by the water as crosses are chopped down with chainsaws and churches are converted to mosques. Abroad, Muslims are totally pissed at Obama for appeasing them, or something, and Iran builds literally dozens of nuclear sites. Florida also loses all of its electricity for some reason and the Statue of Liberty's face becomes a skull. For good measure, there’s even an allusion to George Orwell’s "1984," or rather Apple’s classic commercial riffing on the book.

Everyone hates Citizens United

Thu, 25 Oct 2012 14:45:00 +0000

Maybe it’s the fact that people are tired of having their favorite TV shows as a side dish to political attack ads this time of year, but a new poll shows that Americans think there’s way too much money in politics. Almost 90 percent of respondents agree there’s too much corporate money in politics, with 51 percent strongly agreeing, according to a new poll released today by the Corporate Reform Coalition. The poll of 804 Americans was conducted by the Democratic-leaning P.R. firm Bannon Communications.

Have super PACs ruined the election?

Tue, 28 Aug 2012 22:34:00 +0000

We’ve all seen the numbers; we know Super PAC politics is a slow-motion disaster unfolding before our eyes, and that a handful of rich people have the ability to dramatically swing elections. But beyond influencing individual races and shifting the way national campaigns must be run, Super PACs and the messages they are promoting may have a dramatic long-term effect on how we as a society view our government.

Super PAC spending has already hit $200 million this cycle, and with the big players reporting plenty in their reserves, the top of this mountain of cash is not yet in sight. We’re not talking about an even layer of money covering the political landscape, either. This money is going to support conservative causes at a disproportionately high rate. Not only does Open Secrets identify three-quarters of the Super PAC funds as being raised and spent by conservative groups, but ProPublica has tracked media buys and reported that “conservative social-welfare groups” have already spent some $70 million on television ads, compared to $1.6 million spent by liberal groups.

Nonprofits’ “public welfare” ruse

Tue, 21 Aug 2012 21:20:00 +0000

Matt Brooks describes the mission of the Republican Jewish Coalition as educating the Jewish community about critical domestic and foreign policy issues.

But the well-dressed crowd that gathered in May for a luncheon on the 24th floor of a New York law firm easily could have figured that the group had a different purpose: Helping Mitt Romney win the presidency.

Brooks, the group's executive director, showed the 100 or so attendees two coalition-funded ads taking aim at President Barack Obama. Then Brooks made a pitch for a $6.5 million plan to help Romney in battleground states, reminding guests that their donations would not be publicly disclosed by the tax-exempt group.

"Contributions to the RJC are not reported," Brooks told the people sitting around a horseshoe-shaped table. "We don't make our donors' names available. We can take corporate money, personal money, cash, shekels, whatever you got."