Friday, August 13, 2004
Reform . . .
I love the legislative system in this country. So dysfunctional.
And what you got is an avalanche of money into politics this year as George Soros, Democratic big shots and, to a lesser extent, Republican moneymen (Republicans are slower on the uptake) get into the business of "independent" political expenditures.
All that McCain-Feingold did was make it impossible to make huge personal contributions to political parties. But if you have far more money than you can ever hope to spend, what to do? Buy another Gulfstream V? No. Play an even more important role in politics by bankrolling your very own "527," a tax-code loophole that enables the fat cats to fund their own political advertising so long as they do not "coordinate" with the candidate.
The ads have another restriction. They cannot advocate voting for anyone. I love that part, for two reasons. First, it produces comical scripts that say, "President Bush, friend of Halliburton, likes taking food from the mouths of orphans. If you think that this is not nice, write President Bush and tell him so." Of course, the ad buyers mean: "Vote Kerry." But they cannot say so.
Second, I like the poetic justice. The goo-goo do-gooders who endorsed campaign finance reform have another great cause: the awfulness of negative campaigning. Well, they have produced a system that is practically designed to produce negative ads.
And what you got is an avalanche of money into politics this year as George Soros, Democratic big shots and, to a lesser extent, Republican moneymen (Republicans are slower on the uptake) get into the business of "independent" political expenditures.
All that McCain-Feingold did was make it impossible to make huge personal contributions to political parties. But if you have far more money than you can ever hope to spend, what to do? Buy another Gulfstream V? No. Play an even more important role in politics by bankrolling your very own "527," a tax-code loophole that enables the fat cats to fund their own political advertising so long as they do not "coordinate" with the candidate.
The ads have another restriction. They cannot advocate voting for anyone. I love that part, for two reasons. First, it produces comical scripts that say, "President Bush, friend of Halliburton, likes taking food from the mouths of orphans. If you think that this is not nice, write President Bush and tell him so." Of course, the ad buyers mean: "Vote Kerry." But they cannot say so.
Second, I like the poetic justice. The goo-goo do-gooders who endorsed campaign finance reform have another great cause: the awfulness of negative campaigning. Well, they have produced a system that is practically designed to produce negative ads.
