Who’s Your Sugar Daddy?

Few Americans are happy about the Citizens United decision of the ultraconservative wing of the Supreme Court. Justice Stevens, in his dissent, wrote A democracy cannot function effectively when its constituent members believe laws are being bought and sold. Watching Republican candidates suck up to sugar daddies is just that–buying and selling America.

Just another open marriage of sorts. Shel Adelson, Gingrich’s sugar daddy for now. I say ‘for now’ because Adelson and spouse are signalling they may take their money bags to the Romney campaign. That would add to treasures bestowed upon him by Donald Trump. Most recently we learn that Santorum has his own bankroller, Foster Friess, a playmate of Dick Cheney.  The Koch brothers have funded opposition campaigns against President Obama’s policies–from health-care reform to the economic-stimulus program. Their ideological network is known as the Kochtopus. Were Huntsman still in the race, he could have turned to his very own sugar daddy, Mr. Huntsman.

A major news-cycle focus this week will be President Obama’s decision to encourage a Democratic SuperPAC.  Is he caving on his principles?  Is having a SuperPAC necessary givenCitizens United and the oppositions’ sugar daddies?   Is it a choice of adhering to one’s principles and losing an election versus postponing campaign finance reform to a second elected term? Will the CU/SuperPAC fiasco finally bring sufficient attention to campaign finance reform such that something actually gets done in an Obama second term?

There’s really no point in talking about how each sugar daddy amassed his fortune. The point is where the money is going and how much that is hurting America. What has happened to one man, one vote?

What will each of the sugar daddies demand in return for their investments?  Whatever their rate of interest it will be well beyond usury. Undoubtedly, maintaining and expanding the existing lack of fairness in the tax code. Unquestioningly, deregulating.  Most certainly, helping big industry in any way it can–oil drilling, tax avoidance, just name it. Not to ignore influencing social, domestic, and foreign policy.

Consider this from the NewYorker:  The Adelsons seem not to take their power for granted. Recently, Miriam Adelson was overheard, “I had a CD on Islamic jihad. I brought it to the White House and told the chief of staff, ‘I would like the President to see this.’ It really is amazing that we have this influence.” A lot has been made of Mr/Mrs Adelson’s support for Israel and his opposition to an independent Palestinian state. But it’s their disdain for employee unions and an unrelenting desire to pay less taxes at the center of his motivation.

Amazing what a few billion bucks will buy nowadays. 

But there is another layer here not to be ignored–likely of greater long-term importance. There is a limit (one might conjecture) to how much can be spent on a presidential election.  The greater concern (given sufficient Democrat resources for Obama’s campaign) will be down-ballot spending.  The sugar daddies and SuperPACs will have oodles to spend on congressional/senate races (think Gillibrand, Brown). Governors (think Walker). Mayors who will some day become governors, then governors or senators, and ultimately president–always owing their sugar daddies. Money is seeding the future.

There are, at this time, no good answers.  But there is also no question that  President Obama has to set aside, for the time being, his stated commitment to not accepting SuperPAC funds.

Growing up my mother advised me, It’s as easy to marry a rich girl as a poor girl.  I did not adhere to her suggestion. We’ve managed, thank you. Things have turned out just fine for us. Sometimes it takes patience.

Know this. My mother would have not told me to sell my soul to marry a rich girl. At any price. I have to wonder what words of wisdom the Republican candidates’ mothers passed along to their sons.

Your thoughts? Click here

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Recommended Reading: Fighting Back Against Corporate Personhood, by Bill Moyers

Moyers begins:

 Rarely have so few imposed such damage on so many. When five conservative members of the Supreme Court handed for-profit corporations the right to secretly flood political campaigns with tidal waves of cash on the eve of an election, they moved America closer to outright plutocracy, where political power derived from wealth is devoted to the protection of wealth. It is now official: Just as they have adorned our athletic stadiums and multiple places of public assembly with their logos, corporations can officially put their brand on the government of the United States as well as the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the fifty states.

The decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission giving “artificial entities” the same rights of “free speech” as living, breathing human beings will likely prove as infamous as the Dred Scott ruling of 1857 that opened the unsettled territories of the United States to slavery whether future inhabitants wanted it or not. It took a civil war and another hundred years of enforced segregation and deprivation before the effects of that ruling were finally exorcised from our laws. God spare us civil strife over the pernicious consequences of Citizens United, but unless citizens stand their ground, America will divide even more swiftly into winners and losers with little pity for the latter.

For the entire article: A Great read

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