Mother Jones has a very interesting article tracking outside dollar expenditures for the major Senate campaigns. In Wisconsin, Ron Johnson, in addition to spending his own millions, was the recipient of significant outside expenditures supporting his campaign and attacking Russ Feingold. The results of this outside cash can be found in his having won or should I say having “purchased” his Senate seat.
I suspect that the right will see this win as a prelude to the 2012 elections when you know they’ll be out to beat Senator Kohl. What do you think? What millionaire will they put up against Kohl’s millions – T. Wall?
Are you sure it wasn’t the fact that his opponent was a complete idiot? You typical libs, kick the blame somewhere else. I’ve seemed to have missed your article about how vote fraud stole the election in 2008. Where can I find that one?
Yep… saw this one was coming… this is what I was referring to the other day about post-election day spin. Money in politics is bad only when used against you. Unless I missed MCM’s rant against Emily’s List, et al?
How much money did emilys list give to feingold??? JD who are you saying is a complete idiot?
I used that group as an example, I did not imply they had given to Feingold. Insert any liberal group — WEAC, unions, what have you — where are the posts saying their money is evil and bought elections? Didn’t they buy Jim Doyle’s seat, among others?
As for outside money in this Senate race, this post seems to be referring to 3rd party ads, but what about out-of-state money contributions to the candidates themselves? Over 72% of the donors to Feingold lived outside Wisconsin, contrary to Feingold’s promise in 1992 to rely on WI residents for most of his contributions.
Remember the Feingold money bomb that this blog reported on? There were a lot of Democrat senators who asked their supporters to contribute to Feingold. That sounds like outside influence to me.
So you’d support bans on third party money and out of district contributions? Can I get stop by and get your signature on the petition?
Ed – some interesting stats from OpenSecrets:
In the 7 elections prior to McCain-Feingold went into effect, outside spending averaged $21.34 million per election ($11.84 for Democrat candidates, 9.5 for Republican candidates).
In the 5 elections after McCain-Feingold, outside spending ballooned to $438.03 million per election ($235.13 million for the D’s, $202.9 million for the R’s).
While the ideal was laudable, the execution just plain sucked. As much as I dislike both the major parties, things were much better – more above the board, much more transparent – when they were spending the money. Putting the parties in check is what has resulted in the outside spending by groups that not even us more active observers can decipher any more.
Putting words in my mouth Ed. My problem isn’t with the money, it’s with the selective criticsm of it.
How is asking a question to clarity on your remarks, putting words in your mouth?
And I wouldn’t sign a petition that so clearly flies in the face of the Constitution’s freedom of speech.
Although the Supreme Court has equated spending dollars with freedom of speech…I don’t quite agree…if you want to grant an idividual the right to spend money without limit, I might be persuaded to see (if not totally buy) that point of view. But I don’t buy it for a corporation one little bit.
And I don’t see that the Constitution guarantees anonymous freedom of speech…if third parties get to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence a campaign or public policy, they should be required to disclose the source of the funds and the people managing the third party organization.
Of course many amongst us prefer to remain cloaked behind pseudonyms.
That is a pet peeve of mine. people that say that have absolutely no idea of the Founders. If the “tea party” truly were formed in the vein of our Founding Fathers, this would be a big issue with them. The Founders would be abhorred that anonymous sources, ie corporations and foreign countries, are spending millions and billions to influence our elections. No one anywhere wants to stop any ONE person from talking.
Money is NOT speech, and they never intended for people with more money to have more speech!!!
Oh, gee, Feingold is an idiot. That clears everything up. ‘Course, it’s Ron Johnson who said, “When you’re in a hole, you’ve got to grab a shovel and start digging,” which is pretty much what I expect him to do.
Voter fraud? Stolen election? Someone forgot to take their anti-paranoia medication this morning…
And I really don’t see how anyone could thnk it’s a good thing for people in one state to influence how people select their own representatives. One dollar one vote, I guess.
I think JD’s point was that we only heard about voter disenfrachisement and irregularities when Democrats lost in 2000 and 2004. When they won in 2006 and 2008, not a peep.
That is assuming Republicans have everything fixed up by 2012. If they do? I’ll be impressed.
You have eighteen months when you’re put into office.
Um…so let me get this straight:
Ron Johnson very rich. Bought his seat.
Herb Kohl even richer. Didn’t buy his seat.
Herb had so much money, the Republicans didn’t even bother to field a candidate against him last time around. No Bob Lorge doesn’t count – he didn’t get any party money.
Also…it’s very interesting to bring up the issue of outside spending only. If the outside spending looks better for your side, you make that argument. If the “inside” spending is better, you go there.
It’s worth noting that the evil, outside spending in this case, while certainly more in favor of Johnson and/or against Feingold – is easily surpassed by the additional $6 million Feingold spent more than Johnson.
Also worth noting: in aggregate, outside spending in favor of Republican candidates clearly surpassed that for Democrats – $264 million to $197 million. Which explains why we’re hearing so much about it this year. Of course, this was also the first election since 1996 where that was that was the case. Let me repeat that: every election from 1998 to 2008, as much or more (sometimes much, much more) outside money was spent on Democrats than Republicans. Source
Money in politics is probably the most bi-partisan issue there is. Anyone who tries to argue that one side is substantially better than the other is blinded by their own partisan bias.
And finally a parting shot – the irony is that Feingold’s own campaign finance law (we’ll what hasn’t been ruled unconstitutional) has been a major contributor to both the outside spending increases as well as the self-financed candidate.
There is a difference between kohl(and I am not a supporter) and ROJO. While Kohl bought his seat also, and uses it as a hobby, we know where all of his money came from. Secondly, Kohl has never been scared to meet the people. I cant imagine Kohl EVER saying ” i have some great ideas to fix the economy, but I dont want to get attacked so i wont say anything until after the election.” Nor should he and expect to get elected.
As for McCain – Feingold, how about we scarp the whole thing and go back to 1906 and re-instate the Tillman act and make it illegal for all companies to give money to politicians. A year in jail for any who do.
As Teddy said:
“All contributions by corporations to any political committee or for any political purpose should be forbidden by law; directors should not be permitted to use stockholders’ money for such purposes; and, moreover, a prohibition of this kind would be, as far as it went, an effective method of stopping the evils aimed at in corrupt practices acts. Not only should both the National and the several State Legislatures forbid any officer of a corporation from using the money of the corporation in or about any election, but they should also forbid such use of money in connection with any legislation save by the employment of counsel in public manner for distinctly legal services.”
“I can’t imagine Kohl EVER saying..”
You’re right, because Kohl never says anything! The first time I saw him in ages is when Russ had to drag him out the day before the election in a desperate attempt to gain support.
Johnson spent $10.3 million and Feingold actually spent more: $10.9 million.( Milw Journal) how the “H” can you say that apx 1.5 milion outside funds bought the election? Then there is the trusty people at Mother Jones enclose is the link, add the numbers up !!!http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/can_give/S8WI00026 , they dont add up!!
Not sure where the difference is, but OpenSecrets reports Feingold raised $18,249,555 and spent $16,249,326 while Johnson raised $12,837,349 and spent $10,457,482. Their numbers are for the 2010 election cycle, maybe JS numbers are a for a shorter time period.
and the sour grapes continue. Its not money that bought the election it was that people have tired of Russ have tired of democrats and hope the new direction this country is going to move to will improve it. The old guard was not working, no fresh ides, no accountability no responsiblity and they stopped listening to the people they elected. Democrats could have had a great run here if they had not gone power mad on Jan 20 2009 and let their common sense at the podium and went off half cocked with no real direction.
America has changed and the republicnas elected BETTER do as the people are now telling them to do. The old cronies of the RNC if they don’t like it need to move aside.
Russ and many democrats around AMerica learned a valuable lesson last night.