Frank VanderSloot is an Idaho billionaire and the CEO of Melaleuca Inc., a controversial company that peddles dietary supplements and cleaning products. VanderSloot has long used his wealth to advance right-wing political causes. He is currently national finance co-chair of the Mitt Romney and his company has become one of the biggest donors ($1 mln) to the ostensibly “independent” pro-Romney Super PAC, “Restore Our Future,” Glenn Greenwald reported at Salon.com (2/19). Greenwald reported that Melaleuca’s get-rich pitches have in the past caused Michigan regulators to take action, resulting in the company’s entering into a voluntary agreement to “not engage in the marketing and promotion of an illegal pyramid”‘; it entered into a separate voluntary agreement with the Idaho attorney general’s office, which found that “certain independent marketing executives of Melaleuca” had violated Idaho law; and the Food and Drug Administration previously accused Melaleuca of deceiving consumers about some of its supplements.
But it is VanderSloot’s chronic bullying threats to bring patently frivolous lawsuits against his political critics — magazines, journalists, and bloggers — that makes him particularly pernicious and worthy of more attention, Greenwald noted. “In the last month alone, VanderSloot, using threats of expensive defamation actions, has forced Forbes, Mother Jones and at least one local gay blogger in Idaho to remove articles that critically focused on his political and business practices (Mother Jones subsequently re-posted the article with revisions a week after first removing it). He has been using this abusive tactic in Idaho for years: suppressing legitimate political speech by threatening or even commencing lawsuits against even the most obscure critics (he has even sued local bloggers for ‘copyright infringement’ after they published a threatening letter sent by his lawyers). This tactic almost always succeeds in silencing its targets, because even journalists and their employers who have done nothing wrong are afraid of the potentially ruinous costs they will incur when sued by a litigious billionaire.
[This also is one of the key reasons that First Amendment advocates objected to recent efforts to pass a bill allowing wealthy people and corporations to bully websites that post alleged “copyright infringement.”]
“Numerous journalists and bloggers in Idaho — who want to write critically about VanderSloot’s vast funding of right-wing political causes — are petrified even to mention his name for fear of these threats,” Greenwald wrote. “As his work on the Romney campaign brings him national notoriety, he is now aiming these tactics beyond Idaho. To allow this scheme to continue — whereby billionaires can use their bottomless wealth to intimidate ordinary citizens and media outlets out of writing about them — is to permit the wealthiest in America to thuggishly shield themselves from legitimate criticism and scrutiny.”
Greenwald, a lawyer who has specialized in constitutional and civil rights issues, noted that threatening journalists and bloggers with baseless lawsuits and trying to suppress free debate is a recognized menace. Close to 30 states in the US have adopted so-called anti-SLAPP statutes — designed to punish “strategic lawsuits against public participation” (SLAPP). Those statutes create causes of action against those who abuse the legal system not to vindicate legal rights, but to intimidate and silence critics. Organizations such as The Public Participation Project (anti-slapp.org) now exist exclusively to defend those victimized by SLAPP suits or the threat of them. Those anti-SLAPP statutes have repeatedly been used to defeat abusive lawsuits brought to stifle legitimate speech by media outlets and bloggers. As the Project explains: ”such lawsuits turn the justice system into a weapon, and have a serious chilling effect on the free speech that is so vital to the public interest. The lawsuits also cost media organizations thousands of dollars. Even a meritless suit can drag on for months – sometimes even years – and tactics such as aggressive discovery can pile on the costs.” And lawyers — whether working in-house for a corporation or a private law firm — have an independent duty not to threaten frivolous lawsuits for improper ends Greenwald also noted that, as of Feb. 21, Melaleuca did not respond to a message left for its General Counsel, Ryan Nelson, seeking comment for his article, which is available online.
UPDATE: VanderSloot issued a lengthy response to Greenwald's Salon.com story.
PAYROLL TAX CUT BILL INCLUDES WORK SHARING. The Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012, which extended the payroll tax break as well as unemployment compensation, also carried the essential provisions of work-sharing bills proposed by Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) that would have the federal government pick up some of the expenses associated with state work-sharing programs.
It was “a rare victory of common sense and bipartisanship in Washington,” Dean Baker noted at US News & World Report (2/17). Unemployment insurance tends to encourage layoffs, since laid-off workers can typically collect benefits equal to half their wages. Work sharing or short-time compensation, allows workers who have their hours reduced to receive benefits equal to half of their reduction in pay. “From the standpoint of the worker, the employer, and the economy as a whole, it is likely to be a better outcome if workers can be kept on the job working shorter hours rather than being laid off,” Baker wrote, adding that the measure had support from across the political spectrum. “Hopefully states will take advantage of the new provisions and flexibilities in the existing law to promote work sharing as aggressively as possible. Even with the economy improving, unemployment is likely to remain above normal levels for several years. Work-sharing can go far towards ameliorating the suffering.”
LOSS OF TAX CREDITS THREATEN WIND ENERGY. Wind energy advocates fear that the failure of Congress to include extension of production tax credits for wind energy in the payroll tax bill will curtail development of wind generator projects. Wind generators get a 2.2-cent per kilowatt-hour tax credit for the first 10 years of electricity production from utility-scale turbines and that credit has been a major driver of wind power development over the past seven years. But the tax credit for wind expires at the end of 2012. Credits for hydro, wave and tidal energy, geothermal, municipal solid waste and bioenergy expire in 2013. Originally enacted as part of the Energy Policy Act of 1992, the credits have been extended four times and on three occasions they have been allowed to sunset. “This ‘on-again/off-again’ status contributes to a boom-bust cycle of development that plagues the wind industry,” said the Union of Concerned Scientists, which supports the renewable energy tax credits.
A new report from Navigant consulting finds that extending the PTC is essential to keep the industry growing. With the credits in place, the wind industry is projected to create 54,000 US jobs in the next four years, including 46,000 manufacturing jobs, and put the industry on track to support 500,000 jobs by 2030. If Congress allows the tax credits to expire, the report finds that private investment would drop by nearly two-thirds, with the loss of 37,000 jobs. Reps. Dave Reichert (R-Wash.) and Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) have introduced legislation to extend the PTC for four years. It was endorsed by a coalition of more than 370 member organizations, but a stand-alone bill is unlikely to pass before the election in November, and after that it may be too late to avoid layoffs and project delays.
CLEARING THE WAY FOR ‘WHITE KNIGHT’ HARDER THAN IT LOOKS. Some Republicans who despair at the possibility of the remaining presidential candidates mounting an effective challenge of President Obama have floated the possibility of recruiting a new challenger in the GOP presidential primary. Josh Marshall noted at TalkingPointsMemo.com (2/20) that not only is it too late to file in most states. Only five states allow candidates to file after March 15. So the only way a new challenger could usurp the nomination would be for Mitt Romney and/or other candidates who have slogged through the race for the past year to agree to give up their delegates. And a TPM reader noted that noted that late entrants would be weak financially and Romney’s money would enable him to tar them in the media. “No, the smart potential candidates are going to sit out 2012 and wait for the current field to clear out and go against a brand new Dem in 2016. It makes the most sense for them,” the reader wrote. “Tough beans for the GOP, though.”
US GAS GOES OVERSEAS. Republicans hope to capitalize on public dissatisfaction over higher gasoline costs as pump prices edge back up toward $4, but there is not much President Obama can do about it. Demand for gasoline in the US is at its lowest level since 2007, when gas prices spiked past $4, so to pick up the slack US oil companies are exporting gasoline overseas — in fact gasoline is the number 1 export of the United States, Thom Hartmann noted on his radio show (2/21).
The Keystone pipeline, which would transport tar sand oil from Canada to refineries on the Texas Gulf, is a top priority of oil companies but will neither result in appreciably more permanent jobs nor lower gasoline prices. Tyson Slocum, Public Citizen’s Energy Program director, noted last November that demand for gasoline has dropped in the past few years while domestic oil production has risen, leading to large stockpiles of crude oil in the US. The US Department of Commerce requires licenses for companies seeking to export crude oil from the US, but there is no such requirement for exports of refined gasoline. So refiners are shipping refined gasoline overseas. The fuel from the tar sands oil also is destined to be shipped overseas. US customers are competing with customers in Latin America’s rapidly expanding economies, as well as Europe and Asia, and talk of war with Iran that would bottle up the Persian Gulf can only enrich the oil speculators at the expense of suburban commuters.
If Congress wants to protect American consumers, Slocum suggested that it start requiring oil companies to apply for permission to export gasoline — or ban exports outright. “Either way, it is clear that the Keystone pipeline isn’t just about expanding the unsustainable mining of climate-catastrophe Canadian crude, but also to rise gasoline prices for American consumers ...”
Instead, Jack Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute, at a high-profile oil industry event in January, warned President Obama to approve the Keystone tar sands oil pipeline or face “huge political consequences.” Such as $4-plus gas right before the election, perhaps?
GOP WRECKS THE VOTE. Any doubt that Republicans are playing for keeps should be pretty much settled by now with the conservative assault on the Voting Rights Act, Charles P. Pierce noted at Esquire.com (2/20). “Having aligned itself in the mid-1960s with the angry remnants of American apartheid, the Republican party — and the conservative ‘movement’ which is its only real energy — is now scrambling, one state at a time, to undo the achievements of the Civil Rights Movement on the wrong side of which it decided to place itself for political advantage,” Pierce wrote. “Of course, even with the evidence as unmistakable as a transvaginal probe, we must tip-toe around the fact that the GOP has committed itself to the establishment of American oligarchy through the re-establishment of American white supremacy ...”
Josh Gerstein wrote at Politico.com (2/19) that “Some of the shift appears to be driven by resentment of what tea party members and others perceive as an overgrown, out-of-control federal government, as well as by widespread concern among Republicans about claims of voter fraud at the polls. Part of the change could also stem from more vigorous enforcement of voting rights laws by President Barack Obama’s Justice Department.”
Pierce replied, “Actually, no. The shift is driven by the fact that people do not want black people, or poor people, or Democrats in general, to vote. This was obvious from the voter cadging in Florida in 2000, and in the mischief with the voting machine placements in Ohio in 2004. It was energized recently by the fact that black people and poor people helped elect a black person president, and a substantial portion of the Republican party and its conservative base found that to be an illegitimate outcome and has worked ever since his inauguration to delegitimize him on the grounds that he is a black man who was elected and is, therefore, not really president. Absent the hot, burning core of what was left of American institutional racism, the Republican party, and its conservative movement, would not have survived the 1970’s. That was the dark power behind all the success which, of course, it is impolite and uncivil to mention because, as we know, racism died in this country when Dr. King left the podium in front of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963.”
Pierce added, “(And, honestly, Politico? ‘Widespread concerns among Republicans about claims of voter fraud at the polls’? Do you spend all your money buying bags of magic beans from strangers?)”
WHY DID SINGLE-PAYER HEALTH FAIL IN CALIF.? Advocates of a single-payer universal health insurance system in California had high hopes when Democrats recaptured the governor’s office and maintained control of the state legislature in 2010. Single-payer bills had passed the legislature fairly easily in 2006 and 2008, only to be vetoed by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R).
But Lenny Potash noted at LaborNotes.org (2/17) that when Congress passed federal health reform in 2010, defending that bill, as well as President Obama, became paramount for many Democrats. It became more difficult for legislators to vote for a single-payer bill that might be interpreted as deserting the president. This year, when the bill finally came up in the Senate (1/31), it fell two votes short of passage, when two Dems voted no and four other Dems failed to vote. Three of the six errant Dems had been endorsed by the California Labor Federation which, along with unions such as the Service Employees and AFSCME, was on record supporting the single-payer bill. The California Democratic Party was also on record supporting it. But angry activists noted that five of the six errant senators also had received money from the insurance industry and Big Pharma, ranging from $100,000 to over $250,000.
The failure to pass single payer in California is a dose of reality for the movement, wrote Potash, a longtime AFSCME activist and co-chair of Labor United for Universal Healthcare, a Los Angeles-based coalition of more than 40 unions in the state. Although a 2009 New York Times/CBS survey confirms that 65% of Americans support a single-payer health care system, political and institutional support is lagging. Historically, labor’s support has been essential to the passage of any progressive social legislation, and that is even more important in the continuing face-off with the corporate health insurance behemoths, Potash wrote.
Mark Dudzic of the Labor Campaign for Single Payer (laborforsinglepayer.org) wrote in a message to activists that “It will take a mighty grassroots movement to prevail over this concentrated corporate power and win health care for all.” He noted that delegates from 28 unions, non-profits and grassroots organizations met in Portland (1/27) to launch a new coalition to win universal health care in Oregon. “Rather than starting off with a developed piece of legislation that would rely on the good will of the Democratic legislative caucus to advance, they have determined to focus first on grassroots community organizing and outreach,” he said, following the Vermont model. The Vermont legislature in May 2011 approved a bill to set up a single-payer health system, called Green Mountain Care. Vermont will seek a waiver to pursue the single-payer system under the federal Affordable Care Act.
'WHERE ARE THE WOMEN?' With those four words, Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) made the most poignant statement of the week about the House GOP’s attitude towards women. The simple answer to Maloney’s question, according to Faiz Shakir of ThinkProgress.org (2/17), is that women are being callously left out and left behind by the right wing.
According to a recent Democracy Corps survey, there’s been a net 18-point swing away from Mitt Romney in favor President Obama among unmarried women in the past few months. Why? Because women have been watching and listening to conservatives. Here’s a sampling from the week ending (2/17):
GOP Chairman Darrell Issa defending the exclusion of a woman from his all-male panel on contraception: She’s not “appropriate and qualified.”
Fox News’ Greg Gutfeld explaining why “liberals” support contraception coverage: “It’s more about getting rid of the poor.”
Right-wing billionaire Foster Friess, a key supporter of Rick Santorum, delivering his contraception advice on MSNBC: “You know, back in my days, they used Bayer Aspirin for contraceptives. The gals put it between their knees and it wasn’t that costly.”
Virginia Republican Delegate Todd Gilbert rationalizing a state-sponsored bill mandating vaginal probes: A woman already consented to being “vaginally penetrated when they got pregnant.”
Fox News’ Liz Trotta justifies why some women are sexually assaulted in the military: “Now what did they expect?”
Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association on women in combat: “Women are not wired, either by evolution or by God … to be in those positions.”
Rick Santorum explaining his concerns about women in combat: “People naturally may do things that may not be in the interests of the mission because of other types of emotions that are involved.”
Shakir concluded, "At least they’re being honest about what they feel."
‘BIG GREEN’ TAKES CORPORATE CASH. Mainstream environmental groups have struggled to find the right line on shale natural gas and the controversial hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” process. Natural gas emits less pollutants than coal, but that’s little comfort to local landowners whose groundwater is threatened by the toxic chemicals that are injected into the ground in the fracking process to release gas locked in shale formations. Now Time reports that the largest environmental group, the Sierra Club, took over $25 mln from the gas industry, mostly from Aubrey McClendon, CEO of Chesapeake Energy — one of the biggest gas drilling companies in the US and a firm heavily involved in fracking — to help fund the club’s Beyond Coal campaign. Former Sierra Club executive director Carl Pope traveled the country promoting natural gas’s environmental benefits, sometimes alongside Chesapeake’s McClendon, but the club ended its relationship with Chesapeake in 2010, after Michael Brune took over as the group’s executive director, and the club says it turned down an additional $30 mln in promised donations, but the report raises new concerns about the influence industry may have had on the club’s independence and its support of natural gas in the past.
In a reply to the Time report at sierraclub.typepad.com (2/2), Brune wrote, “By the time I assumed leadership of the Club in March 2010, our view of natural gas had changed — so I made sure our policy did, too. We created a strong natural gas campaign comprised of staff and volunteer leaders. Some chapters sought to establish tough safeguards at the state and federal level to protect their air and water; others sought to suspend fracking completely until those standards were in place. By mid-August 2010, with gas industry practices and our policies increasingly in conflict, I recommended to the Board, and it agreed, to end the funding relationship between the Club and the gas industry, and all fossil fuel companies or executives.
“Our position today could not be more clear: We still need to move America beyond coal, as quickly as we can while taking care of the workers in the mines and at coal-burning utilities. And as we retire these coal plants, we’ll need to replace them with as much clean energy as we possibly can. In the process, we’ll use as little gas as possible and work to ensure that the gas that is used is produced as responsibly as possible.
“It’s time to stop thinking of natural gas as a ‘kinder, gentler’ energy source. What’s more, we do not have an effective regulatory system in this country to address the risks that gas drilling poses on our health and communities. The scope of the problems from under-regulated drilling, as well as a clearer understanding of the total carbon pollution that results from both drilling and burning gas, have made it plain that, as we phase out coal, we need to leapfrog over gas whenever possible in favor of truly clean energy. Instead of rushing to see how quickly we can extract natural gas, we should be focusing on how to be sure we are using less — and safeguarding our health and environment in the meantime.”
George Ochenski wrote at the Missoula Independent (2/16), “Unfortunately, this political ploy is not unique to the Sierra Club. It’s more common every day to find big environmental groups moderating environmental advocacy in favor of access to politicians, and trading hard fighting for hard funding. Add to that a concerted effort by ever more moderate foundations to fund groups that “collaborate” with environmental polluters in order to come up with what they dub “pragmatic solutions” to our growing environmental challenges.
“In Montana, we can see the effects as groups such as the Montana Wilderness Association take hundreds of thousands from the Pew Charitable Trusts to suddenly sing ‘Kumbaya’ with timber mill owners, aka ‘timber partners,’ in Sen. Jon Tester’s Forest Jobs and Recreation Act, which sets a new and horrible precedent for mandating timber harvest levels in national forests. That the bill sacrifices Wilderness Study Areas already protected in law by Montana’s late Sen. Lee Metcalf only adds insult to injury—but it probably keeps that foundation funding flowing freely for MWA...
While Ochenski credited Brune with rejecting contributions from natural gas producers, he noted that Sierra has hasn’t severed all corporate ties, allowing Clorox to use its emblem on the company’s “green” product line and allowing Hartford Insurance to use its logo in the company’s ads. “The ties between Gang Green and big corporations seems to be growing, not diminishing,” Ochenski wrote. “The US. Climate Action Partnership, for instance, teams Big Green groups like the Nature Conservancy, Environmental Defense Fund and Natural Resources Defense Council with the likes of Dow Chemical, Duke Energy, Shell, the notorious mining firm Rio Tinto and many other mega-corporations. Perhaps the exposé on the Sierra Club will lead to a cleanup, but for now, the gangrene in Gang Green is Big Green corporate donations.”
TEXAS STUDY SHOWS FRACKING ‘NO PROBLEM.’ Hydraulic fracturing in shale formations is no more dangerous to groundwater reservoir than other oil and gas drilling operations, a study conducted by the Energy Institute at the University of Texas concluded. “These problems are not unique to hydraulic fracturing,” Charles “Chip” Groat, associate director of the Energy Institute, who led the project, told the Houston Chronicle (2/16). The study was hailed by the energy industry, which long has said there’s no direct link between hydraulic fracturing and contamination of groundwater. But critics pointed to a draft report in December from the federal EPA, which said its examination of a hydraulic fracturing site in Pavillion, Wyo., found fracturing fluids and chemicals associated with natural gas production in deep water wells. And the fact that fracking is no more dangerous than other drilling operations is little comfort to people who depend on nearby groundwater wells.
CLERICAL SKILLS AGAIN ELUDE REPUBLICANS. There was confusion again over caucus results as reporting problems as well as a snowstorm in one county delayed reporting of final results for a week. The Maine GOP announced (2/11) that Romney edged Ron Paul by less than 200 votes in a nonbinding presidential preference poll taken during the caucuses, but a later review found that the results did not include results from several communities who caucused on 2/11 as well as Washington County, whose caucuses were postponed because of a snowstorm.
After caucuses were held in Washington, Hancock and Kennebec counties on 2/18, an unofficial tally by the *Bangor Daily News* found Romney was still ahead of Paul by 117 votes. But Paul supporters still think they’ll end up with a majority of the state’s 24 delegates to the national convention.
The Iowa Republican chairman resigned after party officials incorrectly tabulated caucus results (1/3) and credited Mitt Romney with beating Rick Santorum by 8 votes in the first-in-the-nation caucus. Two weeks later, after Romney carried his momentum from the Iowa “victory” to a plurality in New Hampshire, Iowa Republicans added missing caucus totals and found that Santorum actually won the Iowa caucuses by 34 votes. Matt Strawn quit (1/31). The state central committee elected Ron Paul’s Iowa co-chairman, A.J. Spiker, as the new chairman of the Iowa Republican Party (2/11).
‘WHERE ARE THE WOMEN?’ With those four words, Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) made the most poignant statement of the week about the House GOP’s attitude towards women. The simple answer to Maloney’s question, according to Faiz Shakir of ThinkProgress.org (2/17), is that women are being callously left out and left behind by the right wing.
According to a recent Democracy Corps survey, there’s been a net 18-point swing away from Mitt Romney in favor President Obama among unmarried women in the past few months. Why? Because women have been watching and listening to conservatives. Here’s a sampling from the week ending (2/17):
GOP Chairman Darrell Issa defending the exclusion of a woman from his all-male panel on contraception: She’s not “appropriate and qualified.”
Fox News’ Greg Gutfeld explaining why “liberals” support contraception coverage: “It’s more about getting rid of the poor.”
Right-wing billionaire Foster Friess, a key supporter of Rick Santorum, delivering his contraception advice on MSNBC: “You know, back in my days, they used Bayer Aspirin for contraceptives. The gals put it between their knees and it wasn’t that costly.”
Virginia Republican Delegate Todd Gilbert rationalizing a state-sponsored bill mandating vaginal probes: A woman already consented to being “vaginally penetrated when they got pregnant.”
Fox News’ Liz Trotta justifies why some women are sexually assaulted in the military: “Now what did they expect?”
Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association on women in combat: “Women are not wired, either by evolution or by God … to be in those positions.”
Rick Santorum explaining his concerns about women in combat: “People naturally may do things that may not be in the interests of the mission because of other types of emotions that are involved.”
Shakir concluded, “At least they’re being honest about what they feel.”
KOS: PLAY TO WIN. Anent some of the criticism of President Obama’s decision to reverse his opposition to independent Super PACs to support Democratic candidates, Markos “Kos” Moulitsas noted at DailyKos.com (2/16) that Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) in 2010 wrote the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee asking that it not intervene on his behalf and told Politico that he would ‘absolutely’ rather lose than see outside groups airing ads on his behalf.”
Kos commented, “I know some of you probably admire Feingold’s preference to lose — like he did — rather than have outside groups support him, but I think it was idiotic. I’d rather have him in the Senate. His was a necessary and fearless voice, not to mention that losing that seat will loom particularly large as Democrats try to hold their slim lead in the Senate two tough Senate election cycles in a row (2012 and 2014).
“Likewise, Obama did the right thing by quitting his efforts to stymie Democratic Super PACs. We all want those abominations gone from our politics, but only a political moron would think that taking a principled stand and eschewing them was the route to go. Politics is a contact sport, and you don’t tie one hand behind your back, not if you actually care about the issues you are fighting for. You play with the rules you’re given, not the ones you wish you had, and you do what it (legally) takes to win. Because if you don’t win, all your loftiest ideals ain’t worth s**t.
“Just ask freshman Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, who laughed all the way to D.C.”
Kos also has come under fire for urging progressives to vote for Rick Santorum in states with open primaries, where Democrats and independent voters can vote in the Republican primary. “So here we have a situation where we can help extend what has been a fantastic GOP primary season — one that is destroying its presidential candidates, damaging the GOP brand, demoralizing its partisans, and boosting Obama, and many of you get the vapors because of some lofty ideals you think are worth more than winning? Really? ... There is nothing illegal or unethical about Operation Hilarity. Indeed, we’re only playing in states in which the GOP has explicitly allowed open primaries. They’ve made the conscious decision to allow non-Republicans to participate. And somehow, that’s underhanded? We’re not asking anyone to pretend they’re Republican or change their party registration. We’re just asking people in Michigan, North Dakota, Tennessee, and Delaware to continue sowing chaos in the ranks of the GOP.
“The longer Mitt Romney needs to wrap up the nomination, the more money he has to spend doing so, the less time he has to directly attack the president. And that’s their best choice. Rick Santorum is utterly unelectable. If Santorum were to win the White House, Romney would have won it by a bigger margin. It’s that simple. The guy who lost his home (battleground) state by 17 points as an incumbent isn’t going to be president, any more than former Sen. Blanche Lincoln ever will.
“Now if you disagree tactically, I can respect that. We’ll disagree, sure, but at least your priorities are in the right place: winning.”
CRAZY COST OF BECOMING PRESIDENT. In 1860, Abe Lincoln spent the equivalent of $2.8 mln (in 2012 dollars) to win the White House. In 2008 Barack Obama spent $730 mln. “So is the White House overpriced?” Dave Gilson asked at MotherJones.com. “Depends on what you’re comparing it against. The increase in campaign costs significantly outpaced the price of gold’s rise over the 20th century. Yet between 1908 and 2008, campaign costs grew at roughly the same rate as inflation (with some fits and starts along the way, including a significant bump in 1968 and a steep rise in the 2000s). And campaign costs have underperformed against GDP growth: Since 1932, the GDP grew more than 1,700%, while campaign costs grew around 1,360%.”
To put it another way, Brad Plumer noted at WashingtonPost.com (2/20) that the price of presidential campaigns has actually grown more slowly than inflation over the past century. “In real terms, John F. Kennedy spent less in his 1960 campaign against Nixon than William McKinley did in his (expensive) 1896 bout against William Jennings Bryan. Indeed, 2008 was the first campaign to be about as pricey as you’d expect given the growth in GDP since 1908.”
The excesses of wealthy tycoons who bankrolled politics from the 1890s through the early 1900s led to the first restrictions on corporate cash in politics, including the Tillman Act of 1907 that prohibited corporate contributions to federal campaigns. Spending dropped back in 1908, then grew gradually through the 1960s to peak with Richard Nixon’s election in 1968. Spending dropped after the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1972 required candidates to disclose campaign contributors and expenditures and a 1974 amendment after the Watergate scandal limited contributions. Spending picked up again with George H.W. Bush’s 1988 race against Michael Dukakis. The McCain-Feingold campaign reform act of 2002 attempted to cut out “soft money” contributions and limit ads by independent PACs but in 2010 the Supreme Court in the Citizens United decision ruled that limits on independent spending for political purposes by corporations and other interested parties were unconstitutional.
This election cycle could beat all records for campaign spending — and that’s not counting super-PAC money, Gilson noted.
From The Progressive Populist, March 15, 2012
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