Category: Citizens United
Gorging on Mother’s Milk
It’s been said that money is the mother’s milk of politics. Well, our political system has developed big breasts.
When the Citizens United case was decided, I was at a meeting in Florida with a group of corporate public affairs leaders. There was much excitement that evening at the reception where most thought that a new wave of money would be coming into our profession from corporations who were now freed to spend as much as they wanted to influence elections. At one of the sessions the next day, a Republican elections lawyer threw cold water on the crowd of excited hacks. He said he did not believe the decision would have a significant impact on corporate political spending. In his view, corporations were not looking for news ways to spend money in this area and would be reluctant to risk their brands be engaging in politics.
So, there were two schools of thought and time would tell. Well, the verdict is in. The New York Times reports on the avalanche of money entering Senate races on the Republican side through corporate groups. Given the crop of tea party candidates that the Republicans have nominated, they were probably need every dollar to ram these people into the Senate. Then, we’ll all pay for the resultiong chaos.
Going to be an interesting election.