George Will's Self-Serving Arguments on Campaign Spending

Note to George Will: If you can't make an honest case for your position on campaign spending, specifically allowing unlimited corporate money into political campaigns, perhaps you should admit that your argument is nowhere near as compelling as you pretend.

The 2010 elections, the first after the Supreme Court’s excellent Citizens United> decision liberalized the rules about funding political advocacy, were especially competitive. Social science confirms what common sense suggests: More spending on political advocacy means more voter information and interest. The approximately $2 billion spent in support of this year’s presidential candidates — only about two-thirds as much as Procter & Gamble spent on U.S. advertising last year — surely contributed to the high turnout in targeted states.

Let's start with the statement, "Social science confirms..." - if in fact social science supports Will's suppositions, where can I find it? Why isn't Will citing studies, or linking to materials that support his contention that his positions are now supported by "social science"?

The first thing "social science" supposedly confirms is "spending on political advocacy means more voter information and interest". Where can I find evidence that increased spending on political advocacy resulted in more information being available to voters? Where can I find evidence that the spending made voters more interested in the election? Given that a great deal of third party spending goes to negative advertising and misinformation, to the extent that we assume that voters are engaged by the advertising where is the evidence that it improves how voters engage with the facts and issues? If "more voter information" is provided, but it's inferior in quality or false, could it not result in a less informed electorate, less capable of making an informed decision?

When we talk about the amount spent on the election campaign, how does $2 billion become a trivial amount? Why does Will believe P&G's advertising budget to be a relevant number for comparison to election ad spending?

Will says that the ads "surely contributed to the high turnout in targeted states" - again, based on what "social science"? Why should we assume ads, not GOTV efforts, were what brought otherwise ambivalent voters to the polls? In recent years the top six states for voter turnout have not been swing states - unless you count Wisconsin as a swing state. This year?

Ohio had a 61.8% turnout - down 5.1% from 2008.
Florida had a 62.2% turnout - down 3.9% from 2008.
Virginia had a 63.8% turnout - down 3.2% from 2008.
Colorado had a 65.6% turnout - down 5.4% from 2008.
North Carolina had a 64.5% turnout - down 1% from 2008.
Pennsylvania had a 57.7% turnout - down 5.9% from 2008.
Iowa had a 69.1% turnout - down 0.3% from 2008.
Nevada had a 56.9% turnout - down 0.1% from 2008.
Wisconsin had a 72.2% turnout - down 0.2% from 2008.
Michigan had a 63% turnout - down 6.2% from 2008.

In other words, there's what Will is saying (increased political advertising in swing states brings more voters to the polls) and then there's reality - spending went way up, voter turnout went down. Karl Rove, king of campaign filth, has been shedding crocodile tears over "voter suppression" caused by negative ads - perhaps he and Will should talk.

Will next attempts to play the hypocrisy card,

Media and other “nonpartisan” — please, no chortling — dismay about “too much money in politics” waned as seven of the 10 highest-spending political entities supported Democrats and outspent the three supporting Republicans, according to the Wall Street Journal.

First, the fact that you believe that campaign finance should be regulated does not mean you have to go into an election unarmed. There is nothing wrong with following the law as it presently stands, even as you're arguing that it should be changed - even as you're promising to change it if you're elected. That's not hypocrisy - it's common sense. And by the same token it's possible to be appalled by how much money you're able to raise and spend on your campaign, even as you're continuing to raise and spend that money to try to win. It's possible to be appalled by the expenditures of your favored party or candidate, yet still see the necessity of contributing to their campaign.

As Will did not link to the source of his "seven of the top ten" allegation, I had to search for it. Given that Will did not provide a link, I expected to find that his source did not say what he was implying - and sure enough it did not. In terms of dollars spent, as of the date the article's figures were compiled, the three right-wing groups spent $205.6 million, and the seven left-wing groups spent 229.8. If you remove the 27.6 spent by the Senate Democrats' Super PAC, the three outside right-wing groups outspend the remaining six Democratic outside groups. If you look at updated data, and believe that the raw count is somehow relevant to the discussion, the number shifts to 6:4 groups in favor of the Republicans.

It's also immediately apparent that Will is referring to out-of-date information. It would be one thing if November 1 were the best you could do, but... not even close. As the figures used by the WSJ come from The Center for Responsive Politics, it's easy to obtain more recent data. Surprise! The number one and two organizations on Will's list, both supporting Romney, spent an additional $136 million between when the WSJ compiled its statistics and the date of the most recent data from their named source. SEIU's spending, recited in the WSJ piece as $69 million, is listed as $30.1 million... odd? Will, I'm sure, is heartened that the top two organizations are both conservative, and both make the left-leaning groups seem woefully underfunded.

At least Will is honest in the end, at least about his motives:

The advocacy infrastructure being developed by both sides in the post-Citizens United world will, over time, favor the most plausible side, which conservatives know is theirs.

That is, despite all the window dressing, for Will it's not about the Constitution. It's not about educating voters or bringing them to the polls. It's about helping the party he supports get a structural advantage that will help it outspend the other party. It seems reasonable to infer that Will's actual fear is that his party can't win in the marketplace of ideas, and that he thus supports their being able to drown out other voices through massive campaign spending. Will can pretend it's about principle if he chooses, but it seems inescapable that the primary driver for his position on campaign funding is politics.

Update: As more votes are counted, the voter turnout picture is more mixed. For the key swing states, Virginia and Florida showed very small increases in turnout, while turnout was significantly down in Ohio. Will's position that the barrage of campaign spending increased turnout remains unsupported by the data.

The Fleecing of the Billionaires

One of the terms that should strike fear into your heart when uttered by a government agency is that they've entered into a "cost-plus" contract - the winner is compensated for his expenses and is guaranteed a contractually specified rate of return on top of those expenses, sometimes a percentage. Fortunately there are few circumstances in which cost-plus contracts are offered, and they usually involve issues involving a high up-front investment and high risk of loss (e.g., setting up a distribution network for food and supplies in a war zone).

When I think of the past election, I can't help but think of the sweet deals that campaign consultants can often obtain, through which they "earn" a percentage of certain campaign expenditures, such as ad buys. With Citizens United, they can cut out the middle man - set up an organization and solicit funds from contributors, with nobody from the campaign breathing down their necks about whether their ads are working or if there might be better ways to spend the money. If rich people want to give you hundreds of millions of dollars to spend on an ad campaign, win or lose, you pocket an enormous fee.

One positive aspect Romney's loss is that it will make billionaires think twice before again trying to buy an election. But I would not be surprised if, over the next four to twelve years, we see them again attempt to do so, all the while getting smarter and smarter about how they allocate their money. But for now, it seems reasonable to say, some very rich individuals who believe themselves to be the brightest, most capable people on the planet, got fleeced.

George Will's Question for the Wrong Candidate

George Will, who has long been an opponent of campaign finance reform, has penned a "questions for the candidates" column, in which he imagines asking the President,

President Obama, you deplore the court's Citizens United decision. What is your constitutional basis for rejecting the decision's principle that Americans do not forfeit their First Amendment rights when they come together in corporate entities (mostly nonprofit advocacy corporations such as the Sierra Club) to speak collectively? You say you would “seriously consider" amending the First Amendment to empower Congress to regulate political speech. Explain why you choose to make the Bill of Rights less protective.

As Will knows, the President would likely respond with a rather scholarly commentary on the history of corporations, corporate speech rights, and campaign finance jurisprudence, that historically there has been bipartisan support for restrictions on campaign spending by both individuals (something that doesn't appear anywhere near as bothersome to Will) an corporations, point out that the question was narrowly decided by the court in a decision that reversed recent precedent, and that there are valid reasons to be wary of excessive contributions from any interest group. The fact that the First Amendment, at least as interpreted for the greater part of the last century, would have us err on the side of speech rights does not change the fact that there are competing interests at play.

But although Mitt "Corporations are People" Romney might be superficially sympathetic to Will's argument, his actual thoughts on the subject turn out to be an incoherent mess.

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney said Tuesday that he thinks teachers unions should be banned from making political contributions because union leaders often negotiate contracts with Democratic politicians they’ve helped elect, a situation he called “an extraordinary conflict of interest.”

“I believe that we simply can’t have a setting where the teachers unions are able to contribute tens of millions of dollars to the campaigns of politicians, and then those politicians, when elected, stand across from them at the bargaining table, supposedly to represent the interest of the kids,” Romney told host Brian Williams in a 45-minute appearance at NBC’s Education Nation Summit in New York.

He said it is “a mistake” to allow unions to make such donations, which he argued represent “an extraordinary conflict of interest.”

“I think we’ve got to get the money out of the teachers unions going into campaigns,” he said. “It’s the wrong way for us to go. We have got to separate that.”

I doubt George Will needs to be reminded of this, but unions are corporations, which in the eyes of both Will and Romney makes them "people" with First Amendment rights. As posed to the President, Will's question comes down to how our nation should interpret legal precedents, apply constitutional language and weigh competing interests - and that's a discussion we should have.

For Romney, though, the question becomes, "Why do you want to completely shut down the speech rights of organizations that you have previously stated are 'people' who are entitled to constitutionally protected speech, including in the form of unlimited campaign contributions, based upon the content of their speech - what you believe they might say? Do you understand anything about First Amendment jurisprudence, content-based restrictions on speech, or equal protection under the laws? Does your defense of corporate free speech rights translate into a self-serving, unprincipled philosophy, "Speech should be free if it fills my campaign's coffers and helps me get elected, but if it might help my opponent it should be banned"?

(I'm also again left wondering, does George Will read his own newspaper?)

Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus

Interesting, how things can come together. One key question is whether the idea came to the Thomases before or after Clarence Thomas cast his vote for Citizens United. Not a question I expect to be answered, and certainly not in a satisfactory manner.

He Dreams of Gold[man]...

Sachs and Sachs of Gold[man].

CWD and I have occasionally debated whether Timothy Geithner is entitled to any benefit of the doubt, or if he should just be dismissed as a self-interested toady for the financial industry. They say "Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity", after all. (Even smart people can be stupid on certain occasions or certain subjects.)

But it looks like CWD was right, and Geithner's motivations have always been to advance the cause of avarice.

The Worst Government Money Can Buy....

Whatever the outcome on Tuesday, let's hope it's at least marginally better than what we're continuing to suffer under Bush. We've seen the harm caused by Bush's many incompetent appointees, and now we're being, in essence, robbed by one of his few competent appointees.

The swindle of American taxpayers is proceeding more or less in broad daylight, as the unwitting voters are preoccupied with the national election. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson agreed to invest $125 billion in the nine largest banks, including $10 billion for Goldman Sachs, his old firm. But, if you look more closely at Paulson's transaction, the taxpayers were taken for a ride--a very expensive ride. They paid $125 billion for bank stock that a private investor could purchase for $62.5 billion. That means half of the public's money was a straight-out gift to Wall Street, for which taxpayers got nothing in return.

These are dynamite facts that demand immediate action to halt the bailout deal and correct its giveaway terms. Stop payment on the Treasury checks before the bankers can cash them. Open an immediate Congressional investigation into how Paulson and his staff determined such a sweetheart deal for leading players in the financial sector and for their own former employer. Paulson's bailout staff is heavily populated with Goldman Sachs veterans and individuals from other Wall Street firms. Yet we do not know whether these financiers have fully divested their own Wall Street holdings. Were they perhaps enriching themselves as they engineered this generous distribution of public wealth to embattled private banks and their shareholders?

Meanwhile, bailout money is being used to fund astronomical "bonuses" for the employees who ran their companies into the ground. In the U.K. they saw that possibility coming, and thus forbade it as part of their bailout package. Here Paulson saw it coming as well, and made sure that the recipients of taxpayer $billions had a green light to shovel taxpayer money into their pockets.

I can only hope the next President tells companies like Goldman Sachs, "We appreciate that you needed to fritter away the bailout money we gave you in order to pay bonuses to the people who bankrupted you. And don't worry - we're still here for you. Yes, if you need an additional penny of taxpayer money to stay afloat, we'll help you be taken over by a competent institution in the manner of Merrill Lynch, or help you enter the bankruptcy process in the manner of Lehman Brothers. Feel free to ask, any time."

Is Campaign Finance Reform Possible?

You can't have an election without a campaign finance outrage, can you? Last election cycle, the outrage was 527's. This time, it's bundlers.

Ah, the good old days, when bundlers supported G.W. and were given cute names like "rangers" or "pioneers". Then some people bundled for Edwards and were called... criminal suspects. (Oh, I know... I'm assuming that some straw donations collected by Bush's bundlers were conveniently overlooked, and I should instead assume the purest of motives and methods....) Now McCain has a bundling scandal, and the New York Times is calling for reform.

Last week, The Washington Post disclosed that Harry Sargeant III, a prominent McCain booster in Florida and part owner of an oil-trading company with business in Iraq, had rounded up thousands of dollars in small donations from Americans of Middle Eastern origin. Many had not made political contributions before, and were of relatively modest means. The Times followed with a report that at least $50,000 of this had been solicited from a single extended family in California, the Abdullahs, by one of Mr. Sargeant’s business partners, a Jordanian named Mustafa Abu Naba’a.

Though it is unclear whether any of this is illegal — including whether the law forbids foreigners from soliciting contributions — the McCain campaign hurriedly announced that it was returning the money raised by Mr. Abu Naba’a. It also promised to review the money raised so far - about $500,000 - by Mr. Sargeant.

What can we assume about bundlers? If they were solely interested in raising money for a candidate, they wouldn't have to stick themselves in the middle - between the donor and the candidate. It's reasonable to assume that they expect something, whether it's a starry-eyed wish for a photo op with a newly elected President, some form of quid pro quo somewhere down the line, or something in between.

The Times looks at the situation and notes that neither candidate wants to come clean about their bundlers. Obama apparently comes closer, and "is sponsoring legislation that would require disclosure of all bundlers who raise more than $50,000." The fact that McCain isn't all over that reform suggests how important bundlers are to his fund-raising, and how important it is to some of his bundlers that their names not be made public.

The Times continues, "That could be a useful addition to the law, but it is not enough." Right. Why not have complete transparency, and require full disclosure about all bundlers? No, that's too logical a direction to take.

What is really needed is an overhaul of the public financing system for presidential campaigns, which has not kept pace with the actual costs of running for office.

Here's a sad truth: the public financing system can't keep pace with the "actual costs" of running for office. No matter how much money you toss into the system, it's just a matter of time before one candidate or the other, perhaps both, find it inadequate.

You want to complain about increasing college tuition costs? Colleges have nothing on political campaigns. Or even gas prices. I have the following (unverified) figures for the cost of the winner's campaign in the last few Presidential races:

• 1996 - $141.3 million (Clinton) out of $449 million total.


• 2000 - $256.4 million (Bush) out of $649.5 million total.


• 2004 - $457 million (Bush) out of $1,016.5 million total.

This election cycle looks like another bank breaker. Can you really expect public financing to keep up with that?

At this point, I think we need to be pushing for maximum transparency. It won't fix the system, but at least we'll get a sense of who's trying to buy the candidates favor.

Campaign Donations

I have been hearing some people express surprise that John McCain raised $22 million in June, given the state of his campaign. But really, he's committed to taking public financing for the post-convention campaign so, if people don't max out their direct contributions now, when else would he benefit from their donations?

Although McCain's "public financing" games during the primary still largely escape notice in the mainstream media, there's a glimmer of attention being paid to how outside groups will (massively) augment McCain's campaign spending and anticipated "soft money" contributions.

When you combine McCain's individual war chest with his party's bankroll, it turns out the Republican nominee has about $90 million currently burning a hole in his pocket, while Obama and the DNC weigh in at a relatively paltry $47 million, or half as much. And even though McCain has agreed to an $84.1 spending limit by accepting public funds - a decision he likes to portray as a principled stand against the corrupting influence of money on politics - at least double that sum will be dropped on his behalf before Election Day thanks to loopholes in the law that allow outside groups to effectively skirt such limits with largely unregulated "soft money" contributions.

* * *

Meanwhile, McCain campaign is stepping around federal spending limits by funneling cash through the state and national party machinery--and potentially benefiting from donations to a non-RNC organization that could boost his chances in key states. As the Wall Street Journal reported last Thursday, the Republican Governors' Association, a GOP group unrestrained by federal spending limits because it's designed to elect governors, is now "marketing itself as a home for contributions of unlimited size to help Sen. McCain."

This is defended as "the only way the Arizonan can stay competitive" with Obama's fund-raising from "his network of 1.5 (mostly small-sum) donors", but by the same token it was Obama's decision to reject public financing that enables him to compete with these fund-raising techniques - and you're deluding yourself if you think McCain would have stopped this third party activity had Obama accepted public funds.

Gerrymandering

David Broder has an interesting piece on gerrymandering and its effect on voter turnout.

In 2002 and 2006, the most recent off-year elections, about nine out of 10 congressional districts were won by more than 10 percentage points -- a clear sign that the game had been rigged when the lines were drawn in the state legislatures. In the first of those years, only eight incumbents lost; in the second, only 21.

As scholars have pointed out, the scarcity of real competition in nearly all districts has many consequences -- all of them bad. It makes legislators less responsive to public opinion, since they are in effect safe from challenge in November. It shifts the competition from the general election to the primary, where candidates of more extreme views can hope to attract support from passionately ideological voters and exploit the low turnouts typical of those primaries.

Gerrymandered, one-party districts tend to send highly partisan representatives to the House or the legislature, contributing to the gridlock in government that is so distasteful to voters.

I've written on this subject before. I would welcome reform.

Unfortunately, Broder dilutes his piece by opening with a silly attack on Barack Obama.

When Barack Obama decided last week to throw off the constraints on campaign spending that go with the acceptance of public financing, he was rightly criticized for rigging the system in his favor.

It's "rigging the system" to say, "I'll pay my own way instead of taking public money?" How so? Obama was rightly criticized, but not for rigging the system. The valid criticism is that he retreated from his prior commitment to public financing, and his promise to work with his opponent to stay within that system.

Did somebody attempt to "rig the system" (I would probably say "game the system", and perhaps "break campaign finance laws") in relation to public financing, using a commitment to public financing in order to get on a state primary ballot and to get loans for his campaign, then flip-flop on his entire record of "campaign finance reform", breaking his word, and declining public money? Absolutely. But that person was John McCain.

Campaign Finance Reform

Thanks to David Brooks, I know that unlike John "McCain-Feingold" McCain, Barack Obama's primary raison d'être is campaign finance reform.

But Thursday, at the first breath of political inconvenience, Fast Eddie Obama threw public financing under the truck. In so doing, he probably dealt a death-blow to the cause of campaign-finance reform. And the only thing that changed between Thursday and when he lauded the system is that Obama’s got more money now.

It's a good thing John McCain would never do anything like that, because he wouldn't want to end up on the wrong side of Brooks' poison pen. (What? You say Brooks would never write such a column? That he's a shameless partisan hack? How... cynical.)

McCain's Separate Finances

Josh Marshall notes that McCain has been paying a bargain rate for the use of his wife's private jet, then asks,

Reading the piece, one question that suggests itself is why go through all the roundabout? McCain's wife can give him as much free air travel as she wants. That's just self-financing, which lots of candidates do completely legally. John Kerry, remember, took a loan out on his home to pour money into his campaign during its nadir just before Iowa. But remember, this was also around the time that McCain was kinda sorta opting in to the public financing system. So I'd be curious to hear how these two things would have interacted, what the legal repercussions would have been.

I suspect this has less to do with public financing than it does with McCain's desire to keep secret his wife's wealth and tax returns. His campaign's claim, "Senator and Mrs. McCain have kept their personal finances separate throughout their 27-year marriage", becomes less viable if she's making him six figure gifts or loans to support his campaign.

Attacking Obama On Campaign Financing?

For the second time, the Washington Post has an unsigned editorial attacking Barack Obama for declining to take full federal funding for the general election. There's plenty of room for criticism, given Obama's history of statements in favor of campaign finance reform and public funding. But talk about a free pass for John McCain....

We praised Mr. Obama last year when he asked the Federal Election Commission to let him raise private money for the general election but later give the money back and decide to participate in the public financing system if he were able to persuade the Republican nominee to do the same. In that circumstance, Mr. Obama's spokesman vowed, he would "aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election." Well, the Republican nominee turns out to be John McCain, who agreed way back when to Mr. Obama's challenge. Where's Mr. Obama's aggressive pursuit now?

Um... that would be the same John "McCain-Feingold" McCain who accepted federal money for his faltering primary campaign, used it to secure a loan for his campaign, and then flip-flopped the moment he discovered that his pledge would limit his spending?

It's also flat-out false that McCain has agreed to use only federal funding for his presidential campaign. Or, more accurately, he did make that pledge but then repudidiated it, adding a new condition that Obama has to commit to public funding first.

“It was very clear to me that Senator Obama had agreed to having public financing of the general election campaign if I did the same thing,” he said after a town hall meeting here. “I made the commitment to the American people that if I was the nominee of my party, I would go the route of public financing. I expect Senator Obama to keep his word to the American people as well.”

Asked if he would use public financing even if Mr. Obama did not, he said: “If Senator Obama goes back on his commitment to the American people, then obviously we have to rethink our position. Our whole agreement was we would take public financing if he made that commitment as well...."

As for Obama,

Mr. Obama did not rule out the possibility of accepting public financing, but declared on Friday, “I’m not the nominee yet.”

“If I am the nominee, I will make sure our people talk to John McCain’s people to find out if we are willing to abide by the same rules and regulations with respect to the general election going forward,” Mr. Obama told reporters at a news conference in Milwaukee. “It would be presumptuous of me to start saying now that I am locking into something when I don’t even know if the other side will agree to it.”

Do the members of the Post's editorial board read their own paper? Or does this fall into the category of the mendacious, embarrassing brand of editorial that is unsigned because nobody wants to associate their name with it?

Buying Seats In Congress

Today, George Will complains in his inimitable style about the apparent evils of Senate and gubernatorial candidates who fund their own campaigns. At least, if they are Democrats and if they are outspending their Republican opponent's similarly self-funded campaign.

But before he can regret purchasing the governorship, he must deal with Douglas Forrester, the Republican candidate who has come from double-digit deficits in polls two months ago to within four points in a recent poll. Forrester, too, is a rich businessman and is largely financing his own campaign -- this is the world that campaign finance reformers have made, with contribution limits that make fundraising more difficult. Since securing the Democratic nomination, Corzine has outspent Forrester by $15 million.

Ah, yes... the evil Democrat self-funds his campaign in order to "buy" seats. The poor, oppressed multi-millionaire Republican does exactly the same thing - but as a victim of campaign finance reform. {sniffle}

Yes, folks, this is the same George Will who has identified the biggest sin of the G.W. Bush as signing campaign finance reform into law:

In addition, the president has forfeited his right to be trusted as a custodian of the Constitution. The forfeiture occurred March 27, 2002, when, in a private act betokening an uneasy conscience, he signed the McCain-Feingold law expanding government regulation of the timing, quantity and content of political speech.

Because, apparently, this hampers the ability of a multi-millionaire Republican to get money from others to fund his campaigns, to combat a multi-millionaire Democrat who has the temerity to actually put his own money where his mouth is....

(I did some digging into past self-funded campaigns by Republicans, but Will seems to have been strangely silent on the issue of "buying" seats. On Michael Huffington, for example, who set records for spending in his House and Senate campaigns, Will attributed Huffington's Senate loss to his use of an illegal immigrant as a nanny, and seemed mostly concerned with scolding those who circulated rumors that Huffington was gay.)

And it is somehow emblematic of Will's sneering, elitist "conservativism" that he apparently assumes that the public will vote, like a swarm of proverbial lemmings, for the political candidate who runs the most ads.