David Brooks Downplays Influence Of Anonymous Campaign Contributions
(h/t Heather) Aren't we lucky that we have conservative commentators (and their enabling friends in the traditional media) to tell us what's important to consider in the upcoming midterm elections? Methinks the very fact that they spend so much
On Friday morning, the Wall Street Journal reported that the $87.5 million that AFSCME had spent on election activities (the majority of it on voter contact efforts) made it the biggest dog in the 2010 fight. The union was, with one week to go, outpacing the U.S. Chamber of Commerce ($75 million), American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS, ($65 million) and fellow union, SEIU, ($44 million). [..]
Lost in the analysis, AFSCME noted, were important distinctions.
"[T]here's no mystery about who we are or where the money comes from," Chris Policano, a spokesman for AFSCME, told the Huffington Post. "Unlike the Chamber of Commerce, we play by clear rules of transparency -- we report our spending to the Department of Labor and every month we provide the FEC a list of our members who contribute more than $200 for political activities.
"We believe these midterm elections are too important to hand over to rich, right-wing extremists who have declared war on public services and the men and women who provide them. Billions of dollars are going to be spent this election cycle -- clearly, the biggest dollars are not coming from labor. But we have people who care enough about our country to knock on doors, call their neighbors, contact their friends and work their hearts and souls out to protect working families and Main Street, USA."
EJ Dionne, and to a lesser extent, Rachel Maddow, try to put a little truth and perspective to Bobo's minimizing, with David Gregory doing absolutely nothing in his position as spinmaster to the Republicos and stooge to his corporate bosses:
MR. DIONNE: ...these secret conservative groups are going to spend about $200, $220 million according to the current estimates. The money matters. And secret money is corrupting, secret money is dangerous, secret money, as Mike Isikoff said, leads to scandal. And the Watergate-- we forget that a lot of, of -- a big piece of the Watergate scandal was secret money. And to say this money doesn't matter is to say that Karl Rove, who really cares a lot about politics, is wasting his time trying to raise all this money; Ed Gillespie, who knows a lot about politics, is wasting his time. And for voters -- you know, people will know about this money. The congressmen are going to know who helped them get elected. The only people kept in the dark are the voters. This is a huge deal, and it's historic and it's dangerous.
. .
MS. MADDOW: (Rove’s American Crossroads organizations are) bragging on raising and spending $52 million. They said that was their initial goal, and now they say they’re going to blow past that and spend significantly more. So the numbers – we fight over the numbers. One of the issues, though, is that they’re not disclosed. Seventy-two percent of people in the last NBC/Wall Street Journal poll said it concerns them that they do not know who is funding these political ads. And I think part of the issue is not just that there’s these big PACs, but it’s the individual people.
. .
MR. GREGORY: But here, but here’s the issue. But, but, Rick Santelli, the – part of the issue here is that this is the law of the land, OK? Now, is there the political will, and Democrats are in control, to actually change the law? Because Michael Steele was right, this is the law. You want to change all of this, Democrats and Republicans have to agree to change the law because this is what the Supreme Court has passed.
MS. MADDOW: Democrats tried, Republicans blocked it.
No, Rove's dancing partner doesn't know what the issue is...yes, it is the law of the land, but that doesn't make it right. And of course, since it overwhelmingly favors them, the Republicans have no interest in correcting it.
But expect that kind of honesty from Brooks and Gregory? Nah....