Those pesky 527’s
W is now denouncing 527 groups (some background here, here, here, and here) so that he’ll get headlines that sound as if he’s denounced the Swiftboat Veterans for Big Lies. And, of course, it’s working.
But I find myself really confused about what to do about those 527s. On the one hand, they are the way big money is getting around campaign finance limitations. They give too much power to people and companies with money. On the other, how do you stop them from advertising (a proposal the Reform Party backs) without infringing on free speech? If I want to raise a million dollars to buy a SuperBowl ad denouncing poodle trimmers, I should be allowed to.
Should there be a limit on how much anyone can contribute to a 527? Should there be a limit on how much you can contribute to a 527 for use in media campaigns? Should there be controls on the content of ads? The Federal Election Commission is going to decide – in effect after the election – whether 527s should be regulated the way the parties are, an idea that John McCain and Public Citizen like. I myself just don’t know. My liberal money-shouldn’t-buy-influence ideals conflict with my free speech ideals. Maybe there’s a simple and obvious right answer. I’m guessing some of you will tell me what it is.
BTW, I can’t find any position on the topic at www.JohnKerry.com. But it’s pretty clear that Bush’s new position against soft-money 527s is a serious flip-flop by W who opposed soft-money limits on individuals (see here.)
Categories: Uncategorized dw
The First Amendment states:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Now, I don’t care what silly interpretations the Supreme Court has – that text seems very clear to me. If I want to buy an ad, how is that different from a paper writing an editorial? If I can’t donate money to a group (so that my POV can et expressed in an effective manner), then editorial writers and TV and radio pundits have all the power. I’m not prepared to cede that ground.
It’s really stunning how effective Bush is at forcing a change in the course of a debate. We are actually sitting here discussing GWBII’s newly-minted view on 527’s, when only a week ago, Kerry seemed to have a genuine hot poker to wield with the issue of collusion between Bush and the Swift Vets.
The fact that Bush is so dead-set against the 527’s should be your first clue that maybe they aren’t so bad. As far as I’m concerned, they’re a good thing. They can raise very specific issues that the official campaign is too timid to raise for whatever reasons, and they can also, for these very same reasons, take the gloves off, as it were. Not that there aren’t problems though, lying being chief among them. The SBVT don’t do it so well, but that doesn’t matter that much. Those rich republican Bush supporters who funded the ads know the laws well enough to know there is no possibility of recrimination for telling lies in political advertising! Their media consultants know all too well that many people think that there is an injunction against making false claims in TV advertising. And they know, as a result, that people are generally inclined to believe what they see on TV especially when there are a multiplicity of claims made, and they are repeated 5,000 times. The dynamic, of course, is that every claim or even any claim doesn’t need to be believed to be effective. All that is required for success is for doubt to be raised. Lying political ads can play just as effectively on skeptics as they can on out and out gullible. To think otherwise is an exercise in self-deception. But it is what it is. The great thing for Kerry is that his 527 supporters don’t need to use false or misleading advertising. Bush has supplied them with more material than they can ever hope to use. Bush, obviously, does not enjoy the same luxury. His swift boat ads have been successful. Maybe too successful. The more attention they receive, the greater the likelihood that people will begin to see the swift boat vet as the bunch of lying cowards that they are, and this cannot help the president. For now anyway, no side can afford to disarm unilaterally. Besides, the 527’s have an inviolable legal mandate to do what they’re doing. Bush and Kerry can both request that they stop any or all ads, but I do not believe, by virtue of this, that they will be legally compelled to stop.
At the very least, then, until the system is changed, people should know that it is not, in fact, against the rules to make demonstrably false claims against a political opponent in TV advertising. This is itself something, perhaps, that a 527 out there somewhere should think about tackling.
You write: “My liberal money-shouldn’t-buy-influence ideals conflict with my free speech ideals.”
Money shouldn’t buy politicians in principle (though of course it does), but wouldn’t you agree that money is needed for advertising (whether that be print, radio, TV, or door-hangers), and that for a national campaign you’re going to need a lot of it for it to be effective? For better or worse, that is the present reality.
Perhaps in determining whether 527’s are good or bad, it would be useful to look at whether they effectively give a political voice to many who would otherwise not have much of one. In doing that, in turn, it might be useful to look at how the contributions to an individual 527 break down. If Moveon.org, for example, receives 95% of its contributions in amounts of less than $150.00 from private, individual donors, I would say that the people who are making these contributions with the expectation that they are being given a voice. Their money is buying a fraction of TV airtime on a major network, and by doing so, they are being heard. Given the centrality of TV political advertising to pushing a message, how would this be possible otherwise? Given this important function–providing people of modest means a way to “buy influence”–should all 527’s be banned because some receive 95%-100% of their funding from 2 or 3 millionaires or billionaires?
The power and effectiveness of 527’s is demonstrated by the fact that wealthy interests can not ignore them. Keep in mind whose interests were originally served by the 527’s: ours. Because of the success of many of the left 527’s like Moveon, they are only now beginning to realize that they cannot afford to not play the game. As is often the case, when the rich and powerful realize they are playing on equal footing with the hoi polloi it doesn’t sit well with them. Acknowledging the affront to their power that 527’s represent, using all of their considerable moral authority to condemn something, they will employ their usual rhetoric of outrage in tilting public opinion against the 527’s: “Of course the 527’s are a damnable thing!” one might hear them say, or “Who knows where this could lead!” “It must be stopped!” Powerful interests both Republican and Democrat are used to is having the airwaves to themselves. The 527’s change the rules a bit. No one will be able to prevent the rich and powerful from having a seat at this table, but that is not an argument for getting rid of it. To the contrary. If they weren’t coming too it would probably mean that it wasn’t working. It would be ashamed to get rid of 527’s and return the airwaves back to those who think it is rightfully theirs. Until recently, by law and custom, it really was rightfully theirs.
Free speech vs buying influence – Joho on 527’s
David Weinberger blogs about George Bush denouncing 527 groups. David links to Roji pointing out that this is a serious flip-flop from his original position. David’s point is that on the one hand, the 527 groups represent a way to…
I find it curiouser and curioser as Kerry vents his hatred of the Swift Boat ads, tha none of the newspapers and TV nets that support him have done any realistic criticism of his collusion with the Soros/Moveon.com groups. The Soros/Kerry group quite litterally hates the ground Bush walks on. Bush does not despise them in the same way. He considers them wrong, and maybe wrongheaded, but doesn’t demonize them. My own feelings abour Bush’s qualifications revolve around the Mexican border, where I live [Corpus Christi, TX]. And, given a qualified and humane Demo, I might even vote for him over this issue. But I cannot and will not vote for a man who calle me and my compatriots in the ‘Nam “babykillers.” His testimony was lies, more lies, etc. And I judge him by the company he keeps. How good can a person be who invites that lying scumbag Moore on the stage as an honored guest at the convention? Oh, for the days of candidates you could respect. I did not vote for Lyndon Johnson, and I know all about the ballot boxes in Duval Co. [it’s very near Corpus], but when he got in, he stood like a man. Almost alone, he forced the deep South to accept equality for black people. And he bore the burden of Vietnam for as long as he could, then, laid it down honorably. Harry Truman was another. He made mistakes, plenty of them, but the buck always stopped on Harry’s desk. One thing I blame him for is our involvement in the Vietnam War. A little history. At the end of WWI, when all the loot was being parcelled out, Ho Chi Minh, representing the native Vietnames, tried to get the convention and later the League of Nations to get France to let them go. No luck. At this time, he was probably a Socialist, but had not yet become Communist. Flash forward to WWII. At the end of the war, U.S. troops were welcomed into the country and hailed as liberators, come to free them from both Japanes and French. Unfortunately, Harry Truman was a long-time Francophile, who had twice helped to free that country from the Germans. When the question of Vietnam came up, the U.S., under his presidency, helped give the country of Vietnam back to the French. So Ho Chi Minh went into the arms of the Communist nation for backing. So when the French were finally kicked out, the nation broke in two and the war began. Under JFK, we sent in “advisors” and gradually their role expanded until we were fully engaged. We had, however, one major disadvantage. A subversive press, determined that the military solution was wrong, and used every tactic they could think of to raise feelings about the war and denigrate the soldiers fighting it. The Tet Offensive is often touted by the left as the “great turning point”. And it became so because our press flat lied about it. Were we caught unprepared? Yes. This has happened to the trusting Americans in every war we’ve been involved in, just about. We though we had a cease-fire for the holy week. Then, almost simultaneously, the Viet Cong attacked every outpost we had, just about. The press called it a debacle. Yes, we had heavy losses, but what they don’t tell you is that the U.S. military, caught off guard, trustin fools they were, quite litterally slaughtered most of the Viet Cong. After Tet, they never were a real factor. It became an NVA war. The NVA, like the Cong before them, were infiltrating through neighboring countries with impunity, and our own press corps ignored this. But any time WE did something in Laos or Cambodia, we got called on it. You may say what you like about the justification for the war, but we were in it, and the United States Press Corps in Vietnam helped snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
David, I feel and share your agonizing.
You clearly can’t ban 527s, despite the wishes of W. and the New York Times. There’s a little thing called the First Amendment.
But does that mean anyone can spend any amount of money to influence federal elections? Well, no. The Supreme Court has already upheld campaign finance reform limits on individuals’ contributions to candidates for federal office. So the same yardstick should apply to the 527s.
If 100,000 people want to contribute $25 or $100 or $1,000 to a political organization they feel deeply about, they should be able to. But if a handful of super-rich millionaires want to contribute $100,000 or $1 million to a 527 to influence a campaign, maybe democracy isn’t well served. (That means you, too, George Soros.)
Isn’t it odd that the bold Democrats are upset that Swiftboat Veterans are not supposed to tell the TRUTH while the Kerry fiasco spent 68 million bashing President Bush about the Iraq War? Someone please light a candle for them, because the Democrats led by Kerry may actually go straight to hell.
I’m looking into getting a home mortgage loan in california and needed to find a website to apply for a mortgage loan. I found this site, home mortgage refinance loans california and they seem okay. Anyone tried them?