Sheldon Adelson's mouthpiece speaks. (Adelson bankrolled Gingrich's presidential "campaign" long after it was dead in the water to get his POV air time.)
Speaking on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday, former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, now a pundit and CNN talking head, claimed that the Supreme Court’srecent, controversial campaign finance decision didn’t go far enough and that all limits on political donations should be lifted in order to “equalize the middle class and the rich.”
Noting that the court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling had fundamentally shifted the government’s balance between protecting free speech rights and upholding the legitimacy of the democratic process, Gingrich praised the court’s recent decision and the general trend of recent years toward deregulation. Now all the court needed to do, said Gingrich, was go even further.
“The next step is the one Justice Clarence Thomas cited,” Gingrich said, referring to a Thomas claim that Roberts should’ve gone further. “[C]andidates should be allowed to take unlimited amounts of money from anybody,” Gingrich continued. “And you would, overnight, equalize the middle class and the rich.”Salon
I guess he means "equal before the law". That's not much comfort.
ReplyDeleteNeoliberal logic?
ReplyDeleteTom,
ReplyDeleteCorrect me if I'm wrong.
I believe their logic comes from the fact that it is near impossible to challenge an incumbent without scads of cash. Incumbents get loads of publicity at little or no cost to them, just because of the perks of the office. Half of their staff works on their re-election continuously.
A challenger must spend millions to overcome the incumbent's advantage. There should not be a limit placed on those willing to help out with campaign expenses. The challenger can go up against the incumbent and the special interest status quo and fight for the middle class now that they have the financing to express such ideas in a campaign.
And of course they are not beholden to those who contributed without limit to said campaign.
That's how the Tea Part insurgents were funded. It was not a grassroots movement as advertised.
ReplyDeleteIt was a battle of factions within the GOP between insurgent rich folks funding the TP and the Establishment rich folks funding the incumbents. The faces were Dick Armey v. Karl Rove.
Gene McCarthy's 1968 anti-war challenge to LBJ was largely based on $10 million of financing from 5 wealthy donors. What's so bad about that?
ReplyDelete