Shower of Dollars on the Presidential Campaign

Never before have presidential candidates spent such unreasonable amounts of money. The 2008 record — $5.3 billion* — is about to get smashed. All because of a fateful decision from the Supreme Court…

During the Iowa caucus, narrowly won by Mitt Romney on Jan. 4 (his victories in New Hampshire on Jan. 10 and Florida on Jan. 31 are much clearer), residents of this midwest state, though used to arctic temperatures, were hit head-on by a new kind of blizzard: television spots — extremely fierce generally — for the various candidates, which played tirelessly on a loop on every television screen. The whole process cost the trifling sum of $13 million. This does not bode well for what remains to come of the Republican primaries and the entire presidential campaign. Evidently, we are about to witness a rat race. Run with millions of dollars.

It was the Supreme Court’s decision entitled Citizens United that, in January 2010, deeply disrupted the American electoral landscape. Which took a turn for the worse. From then on, political organizations known as “super PACs (Political Action Committee)” were free to pour as much money as they wish, or are able to, into electoral campaigns. In theory, each candidate is only legally entitled to receive $2,500 from one donor. But super PACs are exempt from this limit, so long as they do not coordinate directly with their chosen candidate. The outcome of this? In Iowa, only a third of the sums squandered on the campaign came from candidates. And the rest came from super PACs, of which we know full well — and there lies the incredible hypocrisy of it — who they support, seeing as most of their shareholders are former advisers of the candidates! Thus we witness rather pathetic squirming, with one candidate or another refusing to be seen as the person behind adverts too violent to be honest, even when, naturally, he benefits from it directly.

Mitt Romney, for instance, denied any responsibility for several TV spots of a rare violence against Newt Gingrich, his most serious rival until mid-December. “Newt has more baggage than the airlines,” suavely announces one of the spots. But Romney swears by all the gods above that he did not put one cent into the project, which was entirely financed by the super PAC Restore Our Future. Which is all a joke, as the super PAC in question has been concentrating all its efforts on his election. Thanks to this right cannonade — $3 million were spent in Iowa alone — Romney managed to outdo Gingrich at the caucus.

Dirty Demolition Job

After this resounding slap in the face, the Iowa loser, the good Christian that he is, did not stop to turn the other cheek. Winning Our Future, the super PAC that supports him, promptly retaliated. In the same tone. It is true that the $5 million recently received from an ultra-rich Las Vegas casino owner was a great help in this. Broadcast in New Hampshire and South Carolina (the following step in the primaries, on January 21), a series of adverts attacked Romney’s past history as the head of Bain Capital, a private equity firm with expertise in buying out companies in financial trouble. With the same efficiency. Before his unequivocal victory in New Hampshire, where merely $5 million were spent on advertising since the state appeared so clearly due to Romney, support for the latter in national polls dropped from 43 percent to 33 percent.

In short, by accepting to take on the dirty demolition job, the super PACs have managed to make themselves indispensable. Each candidate has his own. They all have names shaped like slogans: Make Us Great, for Rick Perry, The Red, White and Blue Fund, for Rick Santorum … Even President Obama has his, Priorities USA Action, which pledged $100 million in addition to the candidate’s own funds, which should be considerable already.

The $5.3 billion spent in 2008 for the national and local campaigns will be largely exceeded this year. In South Carolina, Gingrich and Romney have already invested $3.4 million and $2.3 million respectively. The big winners in this process are obviously the lobbies and, more generally, private interests behind the super PACs. The heavyweights of industry and finance have made their choice: A broad majority have gathered behind Romney, who is, more than ever, the candidate of the Republican establishment. Even Obama is involved. In 2008, he swore on a stack of Bibles that he would never take money from lobbies. He will keep that promise again this year, but Priorities USA Action is in no way bound by it.

Returning the Favor

How can we believe that these overly generous donors will not sooner or later demand a return of the favor? Some candidates themselves, such as Santorum or Gingrich, have even been involved in the past, during lulls in their political careers, in activities closely resembling lobbying. One figure: Between 1998 and 2008, the industries of insurance, banking and housing spent a trifling $5.2 billion to weigh on Congress and the White House.

With the decision of the Supreme Court, the “wall of money”, as we used to call it, takes on disproportionate dimensions. One commentator laments: “Politicians, he says, are more than ever dancing to the tune of the richest.” And, more serious still, they do so in complete opacity. Not only do candidates bear no responsibility for the actions of their super PAC, as no legal link exists between them, but those super PACs only have very minimal duties of transparency.

In 2010, the Democrat majority in Congress tried to amend the law so that the names of the biggest donors could be made public. To no avail, thanks to fierce Republican opposition. The same thing happened at the Federal Election Commission, where the three Republican commissioners recently opposed a Democrat initiative of the same sort.

Although there is surely something rotten, or at the very least, deeply corrupt, in American democracy — two editorials from The Washington Post and The New York Times have just sounded the alarm — not everything can be bought yet. As proof of this, in Iowa, Rick Santorum spent merely $560,000, i.e., eight times less than Romney, for a nearly tied result. He was, however, the only candidate to visit all 99 counties of the state…

An exception in a country where elections are ruled by the money powers, and will become ever more so in times to come. “In God we trust,” the United States motto proclaims on banknotes. It is the truth, but it has a hidden corollary. Because they also deeply trust in big money.

*Editor’s note: According the Federal Election Commission, total campaign expenditures by all of the major Party candidates, and Ralph Nader, totaled $1.8 billion.