None dare call it bribing politicians.
Secret Campaign Donations are not FREE Speech, it is BOUGHT Speech!
The other day Senator Russ Feingold got a HUGE round of applause during his Senatorial debate when he demanded that his opponent Ron Johnson STOP accepting secret funding and secretly funded ads on his behalf. Democrats, flooded by secret Citizens United funding of their Conservatives opponents, have finally started making the case that secret campaign donations are tantamount to bribes! The public, even misinformed teabaggers, DOES NOT LIKE corporations and secret donors bribing their politicians, and now that Democrats and the White House are attacking the Chamber of Commerce and Karl Rove backed groups that are funded by secret donations, the GOP is forced to play DEFENSE! It's a no-brainer WINNING MESSAGE for Dems!
And that message is Secret Donors have something to HIDE and expect something in return for their secret donations bribes!
Video plus more below the fold
Crossposted at The Progressive Electorate.com
Watch the whole video . . .
In a piece at CrooksandLiars.com titled Maddow: Exposing Anonymous Corporate Republican Donors is a Winning Tactic for Democrats we see a WINNING MESSAGE coming out of Democrats!
Rachel Maddow talked to Democratic pollster Celinda Lake about the Democrats' strategy for the mid-term elections: using the emerging scandal around anonymous corporate donors pouring money into Republican coffers as a campaign issue. Lake explained to Maddow why -- contrary to Beltway conventional wisdom -- this is a good issue for Democrats to run on.
LAKE: This is an issue that is a good October surprise for the Democrats and the progressives. It’s a way of really raising the fundamental question about whose side you're on. It ties into an economic narrative. We’ve had a hard time getting off the ground. In twenty-two congressional districts where the Chamber is running its ads with foreign money, 184,000 jobs have been outsourced to many of these very same foreign corporations.
These people aren’t putting up their money for nothing. What are they buying? And this isn’t free speech, it’s bought speech and the public has a right to know who’s trying to buy their candidates.
It is no mistake that Congressman who get funded by Health Insurers OPPOSE Health Care Reform
It is no mistake that Climate Zombies only start denying Climate Change Science after they have taken funding from Big Polluters.
It is no mistake that Wall Street funded politicians OPPOSE financial reform and always try to protect Wall Street.
It is no mistake that Conservatives who opposed the DISCLOSE ACT to curtail and make public secret Citizens United unleashed funds have been the biggest recipient of those funds/bribes.
And it is no mistake that the foreign corporations that offshore American jobs are making secret donations to the very politicians who will help them offshore even more American jobs with tax cuts to boot!
and on and on it goes
There is only one word for this: Bribery.
Democrats are FINALLY getting a winning message. In the past Democrats were afraid to run on this since nearly half that money would go to bribe them too (Let's be honest about that, shall we.) But now that these secret bribes are going to Conservatives at a 7:1 clip, Dems see nothing to lose in going on the attack here.
Just check it out . . .
Tim Kaine: Anonymous Conservative Fundraising Could Be Biggest Scandal Since Watergate
DNC Chair Tim Kaine raised the rhetorical stakes surrounding the debate over anonymous political donors, saying that the funding revenues driving conservative groups in the 2010 elections could be the biggest scandal since Watergate.
~snip~
Speaking at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast on Thursday, Kaine's argument echoed a fear, expressed most often by good government groups, that the dismantling of 30 years of campaign finance regulations had created a Wild West-like electoral landscape, ripe for conflicts of interest and corruption. He predicted that at the end of the election, "non-reportable spending" would dwarf "the reportable spending" on the Republican side of the aisle. And he even went so far as to claim that Republicans were fostering a non-disclosure climate to lure in big donors.
But not just Tim Kaine, President Obama himself called these secret funds "A threat to our Democracy"
In my opinion, the easiest way to tell if your attack is working is to see how much Republicans whine about it, and at Fox News, the whine is strong with these ones. Fox has repeatedly dismissed the FACT that Secret Billionaire/Corporate Bribes are going to Republican candidates and Blue Dog Dems via the Chamber of Commerce and Karl Rove's groups, claiming "You can't PROVE IT", to which I say YES WE CAN, plus that is why they are SECRET and BAD for America. At the same time, Fox is starting to push more fear about George Soros (Gasp!), which is funny, because when you lump in the Koch Brothers, the Foreign Corporations funding the Chamber of Commerce and all of Karl Rove's billionaire buddies what George Soros does for Democrats is just a drop in the ocean. Of course, if a secret funder tries to build a prayer center in Manhattan at an old Burlington Coat Factory it is a travesty over on Fox, but if secret funders donate to Republicans, well, you know . . . .
And yes, village pundits are saying that Dems shouldn't attack on this one, but just repeat the formula from above about bribed politicians, and replace politician with pundit.
It is no mistake that Congressman Pundits who get funded by Health Insurers Corporations OPPOSE Health Care Reform Democrats who fight back against secret corporate donations.
As evidenced by the continuing Clusterfucked economy that is NOT working for 98% of working class Americans, as well as the ongoing scandals that are the new Foreclosure crisis, the ongoing Credit Rating Agency fraud and high frequency trading dominating 70% of all Wall St volume, there can be no mistake that Big Corporate donors make donations to people who will NOT fix the problem (i.e. the Party of NO! + crpatastic Blue Dogs) While working class Americans are still struggling like they haven't struggled since the Great Depression, it is a no-brainer for Democrats to make the case that bribed Corporatist Conservatives benefit from maintaining the status quo when the corporations and billionaires whose bidding they do return the favor with big campaign donations bribes.
The momentum is shifting. Voters who were not fired up teabaggers are starting to come home. The more Democrats can make them choose who is on their side the better. The choice is clear. It is either Republicans who are funded by secretive special interests or Democrats who are FIGHTING those special interests. The more we choose this fight, the better and better our odds look in November!
And it is no coincidence that Republican politicians are no longer crowing about taking back Congress. They are scared. They are afraid.
Time to fight back
These donations are NOT SECRET. If you can, give, and help FIGHT BACK!
Peace and love to all
You can follow me on Twitter @JesseLaGreca