Did the Conservative Supreme Court Dash Romney's White House Hopes?

[MindMover]

By opening up the campaign-finance system to super PACs, the justices enabled Romney's opponents to hang on and severely weaken him.

American politics is generous with ironies. But here's one to savor. Our Wild West campaign-finance system -- deregulated by the conservative bloc on the Supreme Court and embraced by Republicans for both ideological and strategic reasons -- may be dousing the party's hopes to win the White House.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/03/did-the-conservative-supreme-court-dash-romneys-white-house-hopes/253890/

[MiniMe]

1. The conservative members of the Supreme Court are typical repugs

They don't think things all the way through. Otherwise, they would have put some kind of mention that the ruling only applies to the November election.

[brooklynite]

2. Disagree...

...Super PAC's allow more money in everyone's coffers. The GOP race is dragging on because Mittens is such a phenomenally bad candidate.

[apnu]

6. Bingo! (nt)

[Angry Dragon]

3. follow the money

[unblock]

4. first off, obama was always going to win.

but more important, long term, republicans will figure out how to better manage the primary process in light of the influx of money. they'll change the rules so that, one way or another, they won't repeat this mess. a simple thought is to compress the schedule so there's not so much time for this nonsense.

generally, in the long run, the moneyed interests will realize a huge victory in the court decisions and this will have a favorable (for them) effect on politics.

besides, brace yourselves, because we have yet to see the effect of citizen's united on the general campaign.
there's gonna be some seriously ugly and well-funded attacks on the president.

also note that all races are affected, not just the presidential one.

[Vincardog]

5. In the first place The Faux Democrats are going to give the economic royals everything

they want anyway. Gutting the social safety net and the god awful keystone pipeline included.
All this GOP primary clown car act is just an act to make us believe we have a voice in the outcome.

[emulatorloo]

7. Right, Dems and Republican are just the same

Dems want to insert vaginal probes into vaginas just like the Republicans. Dem governors are just like Scott Walker and Mitch Daniels. And so forth and so one. The sameness gets more striking every day, as more and more Democrats embrace the concepts of theocracy. Obama is the worst of all, with the horrible predatory capitalism he practiced at Bain Capital after he graduated college. That's why we should all sit home or vote third party.

[Vincardog]

11. Claiming that you deserve votes because you are not as bad as the other choice is insane,

it is the same as saying eat cow shit because it is not as bad as bat shit.
What else you got?

[Drunken Irishman]

15. LOL

[davidpdx]

8. In terms of full impact though

I think you have to look at not only the content of the commercials, but also the amount of money spent. It will take into the first part of 2013 before a final tally is made of all the groups that contributed money. I still think the Republicans will end up spending more and lose. Maybe they'll go into debt again too.

[unblock]

9. i agree they'll still lose this time around, despite big spending.

it's it's future and the congressional races i'm worried about.
in the long run, this is a big advantage for the rich.

[sofa king]

10. Not so sure about that myself.

I'm not actually criticizing your line of reasoning--that seems to me to be the big problem in the long run, as well, and I agree with you.

But in the shorter term, I see an enormous loss for Republican backers, not only in the terms of the hundreds of millions of dollars they are peeing away on awful people who should never even have been considered for President.

They are also going to lose their asses on K Street, because a shitload of money is being dumped into Republican candidates in Congress who are just as likely to lose just as badly as Mitt Romney is going to lose. Their money, improperly applied, is on the verge of losing them influence in Washington's politics.

The upshot is that unless they do something completely evil to protect their investments, Republican donors, individuals and corporate, are going to lose every penny they've sunk in this mess and will not have a sympathetic shoulder to cry on in DC.

Republicans, everyone other than us will discover anew, are a terrible investment.

I think that has an excellent chance of chilling campaign contributions in general to Republicans, and will make holding off a supermajority in the Senate in 2014 much more difficult.

And if we do flip the House and have a supermajority in the Senate in 2014, there will be at least two new Justices, a new campaign finance law which the GOP cannot delay or stop, new regulations on the machines the GOP require to secure their "wins," and a chance that the Republican Party will be steamrolled under some new conservative movement that wants nothing to do with the big money (no, not the Tea Party).

[Vincardog]

12. I like the future you imagine

[unblock]

13. i remember in 1980 i thought reagan was as far wacko right as the pendulum would swing.

so i can't sign on to that level of optimism; though i certainly would love to be proven wrong.

[Vincardog]

14. All I can say is "Dare to dream".

[sofa king]

16. Oh, it's still a nightmare!

If the best-case scenario emerges this year--and barring that which I dare not discuss it looks like it may--the people with the money will have no choice but to go out and buy a new crop of politicians. Democrats, this time. The money-shift has happened numerous times in our nation's history, notably in the 1860s and the 1940s, and it happens quickly, then remains solidly in place for decades.

And the money will succeed--or continue to succeed, as we already have the mechanism of corruption built in at the very top through the DLC.

If all this excellent President's clever maneuvering works out just right, and a thousand other things break our way, we'll have a two-year window in 2015-2016 to run out the last of the Bush v Gore Republicans on the Supreme Court, reform campaign finance, wrest the counting of the votes away from private interests, and make election theft tantamount to treason on the law books.

After that, we are sure to become the victims of our own success. Money follows success and corruption follows the money. If we inherit one, we shall also inherit the other, and if we fail to make the very best of those twenty-four months, we will increasingly come to resemble the political machine I so dearly hate.

[Vincardog]

17. I believe you are right. The money however has already started to corrode the Democratic party.

That is why (in my opinion) we will not see any effort by either party to attack the root causes of the political economic and social problems afflicting our country.
The primary cause of those problems is UNBRIDLED CAPITALISM.
The cure for it is DEMOCRACY.
We have to take control of our lives, our culture and our government.
If we don't the jack booted thugs of the last century will be but prelude to the horrors of the 21'st century.