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donations to Chamber and his organization.
Rove would love the debate to be limited to the issue of foreign contributions. He is publicly appalled at the suggestion, but that's because he wants the battle to be there. He wants everyone talking about whether or not a foreign subsidiary of an american country is really "foreign". Or...if a foreign corp has an office in the USA, is it really foreign. Or...if we're talking about membership fees, is that really donation? Or...foreign donations only amount to a few hundred thousand dollars...what nitpicking from the left! He can muddy the waters around this issue for weeks.
He DOESN'T want the larger debate to be had...he DOESN'T want to talk about the huge amount of money the chamber and Rove' group has raised from corporations, mostly domestic. That's the REAL issue...the Citizens United issue. A shocking amount of money raised from CEOs and board rooms all over the country (and from other countries to a minor degree) is being used to buy key local elections. This is what Delay dreamed about...a better tool to provide a 100 year gop reign. The gop had most of the puzzle pieces in place before. Now, with citizens united you see fringe candidates getting 14 million in a month...and that doesn't include independent ads and campaigning efforts. The amount of money is almost overwhelming...which tells you how much money is on the line for corporations where small changes in tax or environmental policy can mean billions of dollars.
We see this tactic of distillation and diversion over and over from the gop, in which complex issues are boiled down to a false line in the sand, a simpler, single gray issue. The complex issue of torture by the USA somehow became just a debate of whether or not waterboarding two guys was a fraternity prank or torture and was it productive (rendition, deaths, Abu Ghraib photos, guantanamo, etc all faded into the background). The issue of the Iraq was was similarly distilled down to intelligence failures. Global warming discussions start and stop with alleged errors in backup data from one report. Health care is about socialism and tort reform.
Simplification and diversion. The more more Rove appears to show his outrage and bluster, the more that journalists, pundits, and politicians should be looking elsewhere for the real issue.
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