Neutering Money in Politics

I know, I've already written about the "money had nothing to do with the Wisconsin recall results" argument. First, I pointed out why the media would be biased toward the Citizens United ruling that allows unlimited money to be poured into elections; i.e., they stand to make a bazillion dollars selling advertising to Super PACs. Then later, I also pointed out the obvious -- that if spending ungodly amounts of money on candidates' election campaigns didn't make any difference, the marketing-savvy billionaires, corporations, and Wall Street firms wouldn't do it.

I think I've done a pretty good job of showing why the "money had nothing to do with it argument" doesn't even make sense and why people have a vested interest in pushing it. But I'll let Sen. Bernie Sanders, by way of John Nichols, explain what it means:

“There is,” the senator says, “an aggressiveness out there among the ruling class of this country, among the billionaires who are saying: ‘You know what? Ya, we got a whole lot now, but we want even more. And we don’t give a damn about the middle class. We don't care about working families. We want it all. And now we can buy it.’ ”

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You Can't Win a Fight by Avoiding It

Last week, Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg wrote an op-ed for the New York Times that made the rounds of lefty blogs. Titled Why Voters Tune Out Democrats, Greenberg made the case that Democrats need to make a push to transform both Americans' perception of government and to eliminate campaign finance laws that favor Republicans.

Those are, of course, the broad strokes; his actual suggestions are more detailed. But the core argument -- or, at least, what I took as the core argument -- was this (emphasis mine):

In analyzing these polls in the United States, I see clearly that voters feel ever more estranged from government -- and that they associate Democrats with government. If Democrats are going to be encumbered by that link, they need to change voters' feelings about government. They can recite their good plans as a mantra and raise their voices as if they had not been heard, but voters will not listen to them if government is disreputable.

Oddly, many voters prefer the policies of Democrats to the policies of Republicans. They just don't trust the Democrats to carry out those promises.

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