Super PACs: Funding the dirtiest campaign ever

Brace yourself, America, said Joe Hagan in New York, for “the coming tsunami of slime.” Thanks to our Supreme Court, whose notorious Citizens United decision two years ago this week opened the door for wealthy individuals and corporations to spend unlimited sums on political advertising, the 2012 election will be the dirtiest in history—with so-called Super PACs slinging most, and the worst, of the mud. These shadowy organizations are supposedly barred from coordinating directly with candidates, but that just gives them greater freedom to peddle personal attacks and outright lies, while their candidates retain a “veneer of deniability.” In the GOP primary, we’ve already seen a pro–Mitt Romney Super PAC destroy Newt Gingrich’s poll lead in Iowa in a matter of days with a barrage of attack ads. In South Carolina, Newt jumped back into contention when a pro-Gingrich Super PAC led a blistering attack on Romney’s venture-capital company. For the general election, Republican and Democratic Super PACs are hiring dozens of “opposition researchers” to collect video and dirt on Barack Obama and his eventual opponent. With as much as $3 billion to be spent on the race, expect “even more punishing waves of negative campaigning.”

So what? said Bradley Smith in The Wall Street Journal. Freedom of speech—of political speech in particular—is the cornerstone of our democracy. Those bemoaning the rise of the Super PAC are mostly liberals who are alarmed that, so far at least, Democratic Super PACs are being out-fund-raised and outspent by their Republican rivals. For all their talk of fairness and democracy, so-called “reformers” want to silence “voices they perceive to be hostile.” Strange how these reformers don’t care that some giant corporations—those that own newspapers, TV networks, and other media—are free to spend whatever they like to influence elections, said David Harsanyi in The Denver Post. Why should only media corporations enjoy unfettered speech? As for the Super PACs’ “dirty’’ campaign ads, I don’t share the reformers’ belief that most voters are “gullible, hapless, and easily manipulated.’’ The ads have actually focused attention on Romney’s and Gingrich’s records—information voters clearly find useful.

You’re ignoring the problem of corruption, said Fred Wertheimer in Politico.com. Gambling magnate Sheldon Adelson, a pro-Israeli über-hawk, has written two $5 million checks to the Super PAC supporting Gingrich. “Does anyone really believe” that Gingrich’s views on gambling, or the Mideast, won’t be powerfully influenced if this single billionaire helps get him elected? Of course not, said Greg Sargent in WashingtonPost.com, which is why many citizens are now fighting back against the “extraordinary damage to our democracy” caused by Super PACs. With polls showing that 62 percent of the public is opposed to the Citizens United decision, momentum is building for a constitutional amendment to reverse the ruling and “ban big money in politics” once and for all.

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That’s a futile pursuit, said E.D. Kain in TheAtlantic.com. Reformers have tried and failed to keep big money out of politics. “Money flows regardless of whatever leaky, legal dams we erect.” So let the money flow, said Richard Cohen in The Washington Post. The result may be ugly and noisy, but it’s better than the government deciding what its citizens can, and cannot, hear. “I am comfortable with dirty politics. I fear living with less free speech.”