"A wise and frugal government which shall restrain men
from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government."
(Thomas Jefferson)


Monday, January 23, 2012

Brown, Warren agree to anti-super-PAC pledge, other candidates could follow

Will this work?  We certainly hope so after what we are seeing in the Presidential race with the big money PACs leading the way to chaos and disaster.  Republicans have a candidate that could not raise enough money to fit his campaign lifestyle so some billionaire comes forward and says he will support him the whole way.  Another candidate when he got in the race came from the Koch Brothers', Americans for Prosperity, so he didn't have to work for donations or go to fundraisers, then there is the candidate who is wealthy but gets a lot of his donations from Wall Street and K Street.

Money has bought and paid for the top two candidates but that is not unusual especially for one of them who sells access to himself for money and travels in a lifestyle fit for a future king although Prince William and Princess Kate travel less lavishly it seems.  They didn't take a ski trip this winter because it was too lavish under the economic circumstances of England while our candidate went on a trip to Europe for fun and relaxation during the beginning of the campaign.

The big money in the Republican race is turning it into a fiasco with the four candidates left.  Is this the best the Republican Party can do?  If it is, this Country is in trouble when we have trouble seeing the difference between Republicans and Democrats when it comes to fundraising at all costs and being bought and paid for by big donors.

It is a sad commentary on today's Republican Party leadership who have the ethics of a gnat with this primary or they would not have scheduled so many debates with liberal moderators and would have given all candidates a fair shake including the former NM Governor Gary Johnson who asked to be in the debates.  He was told by the RNC who controlled the debates that he had to get a percentage of the polling but his name wasn't on most polling ballots.  How do you get recognition if you are kept out of debates?  You don't.  What was the RNC afraid of with Johnson?  He might tell the truth about immigration as he and Perry teamed up against the rest with the truth not fabrications we saw.

We certainly hope that the Massachusetts Senate race is the beginning of candidates telling these Super PACs and 527 groups to stay out of their state.  The Republican large groups like Crossroads and the Koch Brothers have no more accountability then George Soros.  Doubt if this is what SCOTUS had in mind for Citizens United but it has created a mess where only the big donors are heard.

It is time to take all limits off donations and account for every last penny with full disclosure or cap what outside groups can spend on a candidate.  How is Obama raising $1B and who is he going to be beholding after this election?  It is obscene and no candidate is going to get $1B without some "creative financing"
 going on but we have no real rules currently so no way to stop it except voluntarily for now.

We applaud Scott Brown and Elisabeth Warren for coming to this agreement.  Once again we ask "will it work?"  Only time will tell but it is time the elites took a backseat to the American voter instead of their trying to buy elections for their hand picked person.
Brown, Warren agree to anti-super-PAC pledge, other candidates could followBy Justin Sink and Josh Lederman - 01/23/12 09:39 AM ET 

Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown (R) and his Democratic rival, Elizabeth Warren, have reached a groundbreaking agreement to deter super PACs and outside groups from dominating their Senate race with millions of dollars of ads, Brown said Monday. 
The agreement marks the first attempt by candidates to wrest control of their races back from groups over whom they have no direct control, and could set a precedent for other races. It also comes almost two years to the day after the Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United case that unleashed the flood of outside spending. 
"This is a great victory for the people of Massachusetts, and a bold statement that puts Super PACs and other third parties on notice that their interference in this race will not be tolerated," Brown said in a statement to The Hill. "This historic agreement means the candidates will be in control of their own campaigns and accountable for what is said." 
Excerpt:  Read More at The Hill


1 comment:

SJ Reidhead said...

None of this is going to be a darn bit of good. When asked about SuperPACs the other day, Scalia said to turn off the TV.

SJR
The Pink Flamingo