Candidates spend the majority of their time in tasks related to fundraising. Are politicians and campaign managers all fools and political donors wasting their money in ways that don't impact real elections? Are media outlets always wrong when they pronounce a challenger uncompetitive because the challenger hasn't raised much money? Or, is it in fact true that money doesn't matter much in elections and the candidate with better ideas usually wins?
Whether or not money is truly "speech," we know for sure money helps greatly to win elections. There's no more powerful factor in elections, even though there are surely other factors.
In the State of the Union address tonight, it's reported that (consistent with his most recent weekly address) President Obama will call for restrictions on "foreign money" in US campaigns as one key response to
Citizens United's sweeping 5-4 ruling based on the core principle that the government may not discriminate in campaign finance based on the corporate identity of the speaker. At the same time, the majority opinion itself hinted that foreign source money might still be regulated consistent with its view of the First Amendment of the Constitution, and that's where President Obama is moving to act.
Who says you can't effect sweeping change with only a one vote margin, such as 5 to 4, eh?
Regulation or ban of foreign corporate money would be discrimination based on the corporate identity (foreign) of the speaker, an apparent violation of the Citizens United view of the Constitution. If the Court really had a principle of restricting debate on what's best for We the People to the set of humans comprising We the People, it would not have sweepingly recognized the rights of non-human corporations of any kind to speak.
Moreover, if the Court were concerned about keeping the debate restricted to the members of We the People, it would be unable to rationalize corporate speech as somehow "derivative" of the corporation's shareholders, because those shareholders are virtually never consulted to approve the speech, a signed written document doesn't exist as necessary for a corporate shareholder's proxy vote, and nobody is thinking of political speech when they execute a buy order with their broker for a stock, either - So how in the world did the shareholder's rights get transferred to the corporation? They didn't.
Individuals have inalienable rights because they are born and "endowed by their Creator" with them, but corporations are not "born" they're creatures of law / the state. Thus, it's been accepted for centuries that corporations do not have inalienable rights.
Now more than ever, there's no "alienation" of speech rights for corporations (i.e. the Congress is POWERLESS to restrict them) at all, unless the burden of a constitutional amendment or waiting for the "maybe" of a new Supreme Court case and a new court is "alienation."
In this context, how will "regulation" or banning foreign corporations' campaign expenditures do anything but make domestic corporations LOOK BETTER??? What about domestic corporations with substantial foreign ownership, whether a majority or minority interest? It's often true that a minority ownership interest can be controlling, especially for non-dividend purposes like political speech.
There's an even deeper problem with slicing off "foreign" ownership.
This deeper problem is an unsolveable problem because it has to do with the fundamental nature of corporations as special entities designed SOLELY and commanded by law to SOLELY seek a profit for their shareholders.
This deep problem is not just that corporations are, by definition, incapable of pursuing the public interest but instead have legally-commanded one track pursuit of profit. Individuals MIGHT argue or vote their self-interest, but they are at least capable of thinking in the public interest, and often do, while corporations never do.
This deeper problem is not just that Money is NOT Speech. If it is "free speech" we are protecting WHY DOES IT COST SO MUCH? Why does "free speech" cost ANYTHING AT ALL?
If it were really persuasion that was occurring in political "free speech" as currently conceptualized by the Courts, why would people have to PAY OTHERS to distribute their GREAT IDEAS? Do I have to PAY YOU to recommend this post or share ideas you agree with and think have merit?
No, the money politicians spend the vast majority of their campaign time raising is to PAY MEDIA CORPORATIONS to air ads, because media corporations won't play the ads no matter how persuasive or unpersuasive unless they get PAID. Those same media corporations then tend very much to turn around and tell us that campaign finance reform won't work and that it hasn't worked.
You can't believe what you read in the newspaper or see on TV ESPECIALLY when the entire campaign finance system is geared to fuel media corporations' charges for ad time and air time.
MONEY is not speech of a persuasive/political kind, because no money's needed for good ideas - people tell others about them for free. Even media outlets - some of them - give free ads to charities that have truly good causes. Candidates have to pay because their ideas typically suck, and all the good ideas politicians occasionally have generally suck for the corporations' business interests, and they're NOT ABOUT TO SUPPORT THAT.
What money does for speech is artificially exaggerate its prominence and repetition, directly creating inequality in the "marketplace" of speech because supply is out of whack with persuasive demand. Money is not speech because for the right amount of money you can get nearly anybody to say something they didn't realize they believed until they got paid. :sarcasm:
If "speech" means persuasion of voters, money is not speech. MONEY IS PRETTY CLOSE TO FORCE, and quite unlike FREE speech.
When money in fact "talks," it always says the same thing: "Please remove your integrity so I can have my way with you."
Transparently obvious baloney is an easy mark for analysis. More can be said about Citizens United but I'll end with one last thought.
Remember the nature of the corporation is incapable of public interest because it has a single track mind for profit alone? Well, if we get rid of "foreign" corporation money in our campaigns, that will "clean up" the system so that DOMESTIC corporations can dominate with a reduced appearance of corruption.
But these domestic corporations, especially including ideological corporations like Citizens United itself, are the real risk - they have far more at stake since they "live" here, compared to a foreign corporation's limited interest in, say, import tariffs or product safety regulations.
When it comes to Democracy and We the People, those one track machines for profit called corporations, hey don't understand much less respect the ways of democracy - they grant no free speech for their own employee servants.
Indeed, when it comes to democracy and corporations, these two things are so different that ALL corporations are FOREIGN corporations.
It should go without saying that the corporations abroad as "foreign" corporations won't improve out system appreciably - most politicians would return their money or disclaim their independent ads.
The truly big deal is when corporations, foreign or domestic, whether regulated or not, have the power to DETER politicians from taking certain anti-corporate actions with the threat of big ad buys. They had that before, they really got that now. Doesn't this explain pretty well how we've gotten to the point where so often the structured choices are between Full Corporatism and Corporatism Lite?
Our politicians, I submit, are HOSTAGES to MONEY both spent, to be spent, and forever left unspent. The threat of unlimited corporate cash, now more than ever before is a nuclear weapon pointed at self-government. That means pointed at you and me. In the USA we don't have a rich tradition of suicide bombers, especially amongst career-minded politicians. Thus, we just can't get the politicians to do what We the People want. And that's a crime against democracy and against all of us.
isn't free speech, it is a FORCE that utterly distorts our political life winning bears no relation to the Truth of We the People. Any "regulation" of campaign finances for media buys doesn't create justice, it just acts to legalize and normalize bribery in politics by defining who the legal bribers may be, and then elevates the message of the briber completely out of proportion to any real persuasive speech value.
President Obama's weekly address:
“This ruling strikes at our democracy itself,” Obama said. “This ruling opens the floodgates {in the 1-2 months just before the elections} for an unlimited amount of special interest money into our democracy. It gives the special interest lobbyists new leverage to spend millions on advertising to persuade elected officials to vote their way — or to punish those who don’t.” “We don’t need to give any more voice to the powerful interests that already drown out the voices of everyday Americans.”
I salute Obama for pointing to the deterrent effect that keeps our politicians hostage and which never shows up in any campaign finance disclosure of any kind (and never will), but the foreign money proposal, no matter how drafted, cannot possibly go far enough or really address the problem.
Given the gravity of the problem, "small steps" like removing "foreign" corporate money when ALL corporations are "foreign" to democracy is like ordering a side of Complacency with a main order of Boiled Frog.
Except that you and I and We the People ARE THE FROG.
on edit: But "the FROG" also includes every single good idea that the money community doesn't support. We have these causes as allies for justice. The whole situation overall reminds me of:
"Doc" Holiday: "Billy, we're good, but this is getting ridiculous." Billy the Kid: "I like these odds..." 
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