What "Citizens United" did and didn't do this past election
On the bright side, it didn't simply allow groups to "buy" the election by completely flooding the market with commercials. That doesn't mean that campaign money is useless, just that it is not sufficient, certainly not in a presidential campaign when the news media itself is providing publicity.
'There is something supremely cynical about the notion among Republican conservatives that they could use their ability to make unlimited contributions to “super PACs” and shadowy social-welfare groups to buy an election. It views voters as a flock of sheep, easily hypnotized by misleading ads, willing to believe whatever wealthy industrialists tell them about taxes, jobs and health care.'
I will disagree with the NYT here to the extent that this wasn't just a notion amongst Republicans, but among Democrats (in concern) as well.
That said, arguing that massive amounts of money spent by shadowy "social welfare" groups and Super PACs doesn't have an effect would be silly. The effect may be felt down the line, as those contributors (to GOP and Dems alike) ask for some return on their investment. Or when money is used for mid-term elections, or on issue communication during major legislative issues.
I don't have an easy or straightforward or even coherent answer at this point, aside from disclosure and transparency — but I still feel that unlimited contributions by individuals or groups to political campaigns is not a good thing, even if in this case it didn't buy an election.
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A Landslide Loss for Big Money
Voters ignored most of the outside ads, but the danger of unlimited campaign spending remains.
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There is also a point of market saturation in advertising when your ads begin to have the opposite of the intended effect. Getting your message out is good. Bombarding your audience with ads is harassment and nobody appreciates that. In the final two months of the campaign I thought it would have been great to run "ads" that just showed kittens or rainbows and happy music with a small tag at the end "this break brought to you by…"
That would be awesome, +Shar Banning. "My name is Barrack Obama, and I approve this political message break."
I thought Romney should have contributed about $40 million to disaster relief. He couldn't have possibly done anything better with it, advertising-wise. Of course, I don't know if there are rules about that, and there might very well be.
I think that this year, Citizens United had largely just happened; it's a big issue right now, and a lot of people are aware of it. So I think they over-spent and got a lot of backlash from that directly. In four more years, when the Republicans are spending $150 million dollars to drown out one congressional candidate, I'm not sure people are going to be as aware of what's happening.
You may well be right. Handled in a more subtle fashion, the money may be more effectively spent.
better then buying up all the canned goods and diapers at a local grocery store anyways.