Time magazine has a column written by Gary Hart. Remember him? Most people don't, but Hart was a senator whose most memorable accomplishment was running for president and losing principally because he was caught with a woman who was not his wife. Hart outlines what he says is the greatest threat to America: the Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court. That decision says, in short, that businesses have the right to free speech in the same manner that individuals and organizations do. Don't you knees start shaking in fear when you read that? Don't you break out in a cold sweat at the words "free speech" and "businesses" being used in the same sentence? The reality here is that you just have to laugh to hear a fossilized Democrat denounce Citizens United as a threat to America.
In the real world, people (yes, living real people) understand that there are only a certain number of ways that politicians can communicate with voters. One is television coverage; there the media other than Fox News are hopelessly biased towards the Democrats and against the Republicans. Another is print media; once again the major newspapers that remain are mostly biased towards the Democrats. The there's the internet; right now, there are sites of all sorts that send out there messages to the country. After the full impact of so called Net Neutrality hits, we will have to see if there are content controls of some sort that appear. Then there is talk radio; here there are shows on favoring both sides, but the only ones that are successful are conservative. The problem with radio, however, is that the audience is much smaller than TV or the internet. Finally, there is paid media, you know, ads. To put those ads on the air takes cash and a lot of it. That's where all the fund raising comes in. In federal elections, contributions to a candidate are limited in amount per person. If you want to support Lincoln Chaffee for president, you can only give him $2700 for the primary campaign. While that is not chump change, it is not enough to buy an ad on TV. That means that enormous time has to be spent by the candidate getting cash from hundreds and thousands of people rather than discussing the issues. For decades, the Democrats got around this problem by using unions. Since the unions were comprised of individuals (who had no say over which candidates the union supported), they could give almost unlimited funds to the Democrat candidate. Citizens United evened that out by letting businesses contribute too. It broke the monopoly of the candidates of the Democrats on big donor cash, so Gary Hart thinks it is a bigger threat to America than ISIS, economic stagnation, racial issues or even global warming.
As I said, you have to laugh at this self important idiot who thinks that restoring an advantage for the Democrats in campaign cash is more important than issues which implicate the actual survival of America. The other choice is to cry, and Gary Hart is not worth the effort.
In the real world, people (yes, living real people) understand that there are only a certain number of ways that politicians can communicate with voters. One is television coverage; there the media other than Fox News are hopelessly biased towards the Democrats and against the Republicans. Another is print media; once again the major newspapers that remain are mostly biased towards the Democrats. The there's the internet; right now, there are sites of all sorts that send out there messages to the country. After the full impact of so called Net Neutrality hits, we will have to see if there are content controls of some sort that appear. Then there is talk radio; here there are shows on favoring both sides, but the only ones that are successful are conservative. The problem with radio, however, is that the audience is much smaller than TV or the internet. Finally, there is paid media, you know, ads. To put those ads on the air takes cash and a lot of it. That's where all the fund raising comes in. In federal elections, contributions to a candidate are limited in amount per person. If you want to support Lincoln Chaffee for president, you can only give him $2700 for the primary campaign. While that is not chump change, it is not enough to buy an ad on TV. That means that enormous time has to be spent by the candidate getting cash from hundreds and thousands of people rather than discussing the issues. For decades, the Democrats got around this problem by using unions. Since the unions were comprised of individuals (who had no say over which candidates the union supported), they could give almost unlimited funds to the Democrat candidate. Citizens United evened that out by letting businesses contribute too. It broke the monopoly of the candidates of the Democrats on big donor cash, so Gary Hart thinks it is a bigger threat to America than ISIS, economic stagnation, racial issues or even global warming.
As I said, you have to laugh at this self important idiot who thinks that restoring an advantage for the Democrats in campaign cash is more important than issues which implicate the actual survival of America. The other choice is to cry, and Gary Hart is not worth the effort.
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