6 ms·

Isn't it interesting that despite a lot of Sander's voters being against the outcome of Citizens United that his very presence as a viable candidate at this poi

by avar 11y ago

Isn't it interesting that despite a lot of Sander's voters being against the outcome of Citizens United that his very presence as a viable candidate at this point is in a way a demonstration of the point the Supreme Court made in their majority opinion? I.e. here we have a guy who's not taking donations from big corporations, but is just as visible as Hillary who is. Money's speech apparently, and either lots from a few big donors or small amounts from lots of small donors counts. Regardless of what happens with this election I think what's happening so far is indicative of a major change. If things keep going in this direction the 2024 election is going to be very interesting indeed.

bmelton 11y ago
Beyond that, according to the FEC, he's been the biggest recipient of PAC spending. His stance is that it's okay because he isn't fund-raising for those PACs, and that they are union PACs, not business. I personally don't see a distinction between unions and corporations. Full disclosure, I think that Citizens United was decided correctly.
- guelo 11y ago
  Here it says Bernie has received virtually no PAC spending, https://www.opensecrets.org/pres16/candidate.php?id=N00000528 https://www.opensecrets.org/pres16/candidate.php?id=N0000052...
  - bmelton 11y ago
    This article cites the FEC. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/29/us/politics/bernie-sanders-is-democrats-top-beneficiary-of-outside-spending-like-it-or-not.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/29/us/politics/bernie-sanders... In one sense, it's hard to track the dollars directly. For example, an Anti-Hillary PAC at this point is effectively a pro-Bernie PAC.
    - guelo 11y ago
      Oh, I see it now. It's in OpenSecret's "Total Spent by All Outside Organizations Targeting Sanders". $1,881,017 spent on Bernie, mostly from the nurses. On Hillary's page it says outside money spent $2,921,391 for Hillary and $4,413,617 against. So NYTime's reporting is probably out of date since it was before the Iowa vote. Spending is a bad metric this early anyway since most PACs are just starting to ramp up their spending. Looking at spending + warchests, the Nurses have a couple million to play with while Bush, Clinton, Rubio, etc have 10s of millions. https://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/summ.php?chrt=V&type=S https://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/summ.php?chrt=V&...
      - bmelton 11y ago
        Possibly. Not sure which is more out of date; the numbers from the FEC didn't jive with OpenSecrets the day the article was published either. It's just as easy to believe that OpenSecrets has a reporting delay as it is to believe that the FEC is using some legacy software that doesn't update quickly.
  - flubert 11y ago
    Maybe you guys are both correct? In that PACs aren't donating to the campaign, but are advertising on the candidates behalf. Anyway you can get the raw data at: http://www.fec.gov/data/IndependentExpenditure.do?format=html&cf=superPAC http://www.fec.gov/data/IndependentExpenditure.do?format=htm...
- matthewowen 11y ago
  Not all PACs are Super-PACs.
- astronautjones 11y ago
  >> I personally don't see a distinction between unions and corporations. The only workers' rights you have were gained by unions in spite of corporate opposition
guelo 11y ago
Thousands and thousands of small donors to counterbalance 1 billionaire. That doesn't seem like a one-man-one-vote style democracy. Also, money is not speech, that's like some kind of 1984 doublespeak. Money is access to popular mass communication channels. Access to popular mass communication channels is not speech and is not addressed in the constitution. Scalia's "originalism" was such a scam.
- md224 11y ago
  > Money is access to popular mass communication channels. But doesn't that basically equate to speech? Money = your power to reach people? I'm curious because my beef with search engine advertising revolves around its ability to translate money into salience (which I consider to be a kind of "speech"), so I find your distinction interesting. I wish money didn't equate to speech, but it feels like that's the world we live in.
  - kyleblarson 11y ago
    Money == the power to influence people who are ignorant enough to choose their presidential candidate based on a TV commercial, spam email a robocall, etc., which sadly is a large slice of American voters.
    - SilasX 11y ago
      Joking or not, it does seem like a lot of criticism of Citizens United/money-in-politics really does boil down to "voters are morons who will be swayed by easily-purchased propaganda". But once you're ready to accept that, you have to recognize the uphill battle there and the need for far more fundamental reform, like sortition (randomly select people who can seriously focus on the election and take time to think about it).
      - bobwaycott 11y ago
        > voters are morons who will be swayed by easily purchased propaganda. I don't think that's the sentiment Citizens United opposition boils down to. Instead, I think a more accurate sentiment is that easily purchased propaganda sets the tone and content of available political discourse, severely limiting what narratives and ideas reach the eyes, ears, and minds of the citizenry to only those which are best-funded. That people are then swayed to certain positions, especially when they are in opposition to people's own best interests but couched in manipulative terms that hide this fact, is not a product of people being morons, but of there being no viable alternatives in political discourse as a product of being silenced by lack of money to pose them before citizens. By allowing unlimited spending, the playing field for the hearts and minds of citizens is inherently unbalanced in the favor of moneyed interests.
LanguageGamer 11y ago
If money really is speech, than can speech only be free to the extent that we don't have income inequality? Edit: Honest question. Financing campaigns is a difficult and complicated question.
- jacobr1 11y ago
  You are presuming that free speech must be equal speech. I see no reason that must be the case. We can have free, but unequal access to amplify our voices even without the influence of money. But that doesn't strike me as inherently wrong. I'd would argue free speech is about preventing coerced limitations on speech and only that.
  - gremlinsinc 11y ago
    So if the richest family in the world spends a trillion dollars to convince the majority that Climate Change doesn't exist, and in 50 years the world can no longer sustain life, that's not wrong? Because that's EXACTLY what's happening with the Koch brothers.
    - solipsism 11y ago
      What if the world's most convincing liar goes around convincing everyone that climate change doesn't exist, and in 50 years the world can no longer sustain life? Does that mean free speech is wrong? I don't think political spending should be considered an exercise of 1st amendment rights, but this argument doesn't make any sense.
      - gremlinsinc 11y ago
        Democracy is about equal opportunity though, and equal voice -- putting money behind speech is like government controlling the media --it's simply wrong, and it's what Hitler did. Technically I think the news should still have fair-play laws where they were required to give equal time to someone with an opposing view everytime they did an op-ed. I think the news should be more open and accessible--I think when it comes to president ads shouldn't even be allowed, it should ALL be based on debates and nothing else. Because politics shouldn't be manipulated by people with more money than another person..--but that's in an ideal world.
nothis 11y ago
So in that Venn diagram, what about poor minorities? Why should they have less of a voice than rich minorities?
DonHopkins 11y ago
You also have to factor in all the voters donating to Bernie because of Citizens United, and his stand against it.
spdy 11y ago
Currently ~6 people have a shot of becoming the president, 4 of them are supported by super-pacs. Money does not care if the president is dem or rep they only want them to execute on their agenda. The odds are stacked against the majority of the population. And if you go one level below the presidential race you can easily buy seats in the house / senate with huge contributions because people do not care that much as they do now. Overall this is not a problem in the USA alone if you have the media/papers on your side, who are usually owned by a small amount of people/families, the chance of winning an elections grows exponential. Hopefully we see a change with this election as people realize they are getting gamed and start to research online. That`s one of the reasons Sanders will have a very good chance of winning because you can lookup 20+ year old videos and he is consistent.
- roguecoder 11y ago
  All six candidates are supported by super PACs; not all are supported by PACs. Super PACs don't coordinate with candidates and can't donate to campaigns but do spend money to influence elections, whereas PACs collect money for candidates or political campaigns.
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    > All six candidates are supported by super PACs; not all are supported by PACs. I think you have that backwards; in any case, as you have phrased this it is impossible, as Super PACs are a subset of PACs, so every candidate supported by a SuperPAC is also supported by a PAC.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > And if you go one level below the presidential race you can easily buy seats in the house / senate with huge contributions because people do not care that much as they do now. A number of people who have put their money where your mouth is on that claim have lost quite a lot of money without ending up with the house / senate seat that is supposedly easy to buy.
  - 11y ago
orangecat 11y ago
Yes. Likewise Jeb Bush has raised far more money than any other Republican candidate, mostly via super PACs, and look where that's gotten him. (See http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/us/elections/election-2016-campaign-money-race.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/us/elections/electio...)
Udik 11y ago
Sorry, you got things backwards. It's Hillary that, despite being supported financially by only a very small amount of people, has the same visibility of a candidate that is supported by many thousands. Which proves that you need just a few big donors to present yourself as a viable candidate and completely offset the balance of the elections.
coupdetaco 11y ago
The contrast between what the money wants and what the people want will only become even more obvious, so its not like there is even a time limit on progressive action in relation to Citizens United like Sanders suggests when he says "we may already be too late". To late looks a lot different than what I'm seeing in the political scene these past 12 months
gremlinsinc 11y ago
The point of being against Citizen's united is -- that money is lopsided as a tool for speech, and Company's aren't citizens and aren't protected under the laws of free speech, a company should have no say in an election, what's next - giving them the power to vote and making 1 vote from a company worth 10,000 votes from normal voters?

by avar 11y ago

bmelton 11y ago

Beyond that, according to the FEC, he's been the biggest recipient of PAC spending. His stance is that it's okay because he isn't fund-raising for those PACs, and that they are union PACs, not business. I personally don't see a distinction between unions and corporations. Full disclosure, I think that Citizens United was decided correctly.

guelo 11y ago
Here it says Bernie has received virtually no PAC spending, https://www.opensecrets.org/pres16/candidate.php?id=N00000528 https://www.opensecrets.org/pres16/candidate.php?id=N0000052...
- bmelton 11y ago
  This article cites the FEC. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/29/us/politics/bernie-sanders-is-democrats-top-beneficiary-of-outside-spending-like-it-or-not.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/29/us/politics/bernie-sanders... In one sense, it's hard to track the dollars directly. For example, an Anti-Hillary PAC at this point is effectively a pro-Bernie PAC.
  - guelo 11y ago
    Oh, I see it now. It's in OpenSecret's "Total Spent by All Outside Organizations Targeting Sanders". $1,881,017 spent on Bernie, mostly from the nurses. On Hillary's page it says outside money spent $2,921,391 for Hillary and $4,413,617 against. So NYTime's reporting is probably out of date since it was before the Iowa vote. Spending is a bad metric this early anyway since most PACs are just starting to ramp up their spending. Looking at spending + warchests, the Nurses have a couple million to play with while Bush, Clinton, Rubio, etc have 10s of millions. https://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/summ.php?chrt=V&type=S https://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/summ.php?chrt=V&...
    - bmelton 11y ago
      Possibly. Not sure which is more out of date; the numbers from the FEC didn't jive with OpenSecrets the day the article was published either. It's just as easy to believe that OpenSecrets has a reporting delay as it is to believe that the FEC is using some legacy software that doesn't update quickly.
- flubert 11y ago
  Maybe you guys are both correct? In that PACs aren't donating to the campaign, but are advertising on the candidates behalf. Anyway you can get the raw data at: http://www.fec.gov/data/IndependentExpenditure.do?format=html&cf=superPAC http://www.fec.gov/data/IndependentExpenditure.do?format=htm...
matthewowen 11y ago
Not all PACs are Super-PACs.
astronautjones 11y ago
>> I personally don't see a distinction between unions and corporations. The only workers' rights you have were gained by unions in spite of corporate opposition

guelo 11y ago

Thousands and thousands of small donors to counterbalance 1 billionaire. That doesn't seem like a one-man-one-vote style democracy. Also, money is not speech, that's like some kind of 1984 doublespeak. Money is access to popular mass communication channels. Access to popular mass communication channels is not speech and is not addressed in the constitution. Scalia's "originalism" was such a scam.

md224 11y ago
> Money is access to popular mass communication channels. But doesn't that basically equate to speech? Money = your power to reach people? I'm curious because my beef with search engine advertising revolves around its ability to translate money into salience (which I consider to be a kind of "speech"), so I find your distinction interesting. I wish money didn't equate to speech, but it feels like that's the world we live in.
- kyleblarson 11y ago
  Money == the power to influence people who are ignorant enough to choose their presidential candidate based on a TV commercial, spam email a robocall, etc., which sadly is a large slice of American voters.
  - SilasX 11y ago
    Joking or not, it does seem like a lot of criticism of Citizens United/money-in-politics really does boil down to "voters are morons who will be swayed by easily-purchased propaganda". But once you're ready to accept that, you have to recognize the uphill battle there and the need for far more fundamental reform, like sortition (randomly select people who can seriously focus on the election and take time to think about it).
    - bobwaycott 11y ago
      > voters are morons who will be swayed by easily purchased propaganda. I don't think that's the sentiment Citizens United opposition boils down to. Instead, I think a more accurate sentiment is that easily purchased propaganda sets the tone and content of available political discourse, severely limiting what narratives and ideas reach the eyes, ears, and minds of the citizenry to only those which are best-funded. That people are then swayed to certain positions, especially when they are in opposition to people's own best interests but couched in manipulative terms that hide this fact, is not a product of people being morons, but of there being no viable alternatives in political discourse as a product of being silenced by lack of money to pose them before citizens. By allowing unlimited spending, the playing field for the hearts and minds of citizens is inherently unbalanced in the favor of moneyed interests.

LanguageGamer 11y ago

If money really is speech, than can speech only be free to the extent that we don't have income inequality? Edit: Honest question. Financing campaigns is a difficult and complicated question.

jacobr1 11y ago
You are presuming that free speech must be equal speech. I see no reason that must be the case. We can have free, but unequal access to amplify our voices even without the influence of money. But that doesn't strike me as inherently wrong. I'd would argue free speech is about preventing coerced limitations on speech and only that.
- gremlinsinc 11y ago
  So if the richest family in the world spends a trillion dollars to convince the majority that Climate Change doesn't exist, and in 50 years the world can no longer sustain life, that's not wrong? Because that's EXACTLY what's happening with the Koch brothers.
  - solipsism 11y ago
    What if the world's most convincing liar goes around convincing everyone that climate change doesn't exist, and in 50 years the world can no longer sustain life? Does that mean free speech is wrong? I don't think political spending should be considered an exercise of 1st amendment rights, but this argument doesn't make any sense.
    - gremlinsinc 11y ago
      Democracy is about equal opportunity though, and equal voice -- putting money behind speech is like government controlling the media --it's simply wrong, and it's what Hitler did. Technically I think the news should still have fair-play laws where they were required to give equal time to someone with an opposing view everytime they did an op-ed. I think the news should be more open and accessible--I think when it comes to president ads shouldn't even be allowed, it should ALL be based on debates and nothing else. Because politics shouldn't be manipulated by people with more money than another person..--but that's in an ideal world.

nothis 11y ago

So in that Venn diagram, what about poor minorities? Why should they have less of a voice than rich minorities?

DonHopkins 11y ago

You also have to factor in all the voters donating to Bernie because of Citizens United, and his stand against it.

spdy 11y ago

Currently ~6 people have a shot of becoming the president, 4 of them are supported by super-pacs. Money does not care if the president is dem or rep they only want them to execute on their agenda. The odds are stacked against the majority of the population. And if you go one level below the presidential race you can easily buy seats in the house / senate with huge contributions because people do not care that much as they do now. Overall this is not a problem in the USA alone if you have the media/papers on your side, who are usually owned by a small amount of people/families, the chance of winning an elections grows exponential. Hopefully we see a change with this election as people realize they are getting gamed and start to research online. That`s one of the reasons Sanders will have a very good chance of winning because you can lookup 20+ year old videos and he is consistent.

roguecoder 11y ago
All six candidates are supported by super PACs; not all are supported by PACs. Super PACs don't coordinate with candidates and can't donate to campaigns but do spend money to influence elections, whereas PACs collect money for candidates or political campaigns.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > All six candidates are supported by super PACs; not all are supported by PACs. I think you have that backwards; in any case, as you have phrased this it is impossible, as Super PACs are a subset of PACs, so every candidate supported by a SuperPAC is also supported by a PAC.
dragonwriter 11y ago
> And if you go one level below the presidential race you can easily buy seats in the house / senate with huge contributions because people do not care that much as they do now. A number of people who have put their money where your mouth is on that claim have lost quite a lot of money without ending up with the house / senate seat that is supposedly easy to buy.
- 11y ago

orangecat 11y ago

Yes. Likewise Jeb Bush has raised far more money than any other Republican candidate, mostly via super PACs, and look where that's gotten him. (See http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/us/elections/election-2016-campaign-money-race.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/us/elections/electio...)

Udik 11y ago

Sorry, you got things backwards. It's Hillary that, despite being supported financially by only a very small amount of people, has the same visibility of a candidate that is supported by many thousands. Which proves that you need just a few big donors to present yourself as a viable candidate and completely offset the balance of the elections.

coupdetaco 11y ago

The contrast between what the money wants and what the people want will only become even more obvious, so its not like there is even a time limit on progressive action in relation to Citizens United like Sanders suggests when he says "we may already be too late". To late looks a lot different than what I'm seeing in the political scene these past 12 months

gremlinsinc 11y ago

The point of being against Citizen's united is -- that money is lopsided as a tool for speech, and Company's aren't citizens and aren't protected under the laws of free speech, a company should have no say in an election, what's next - giving them the power to vote and making 1 vote from a company worth 10,000 votes from normal voters?