David Axelrod: The election campaigners we can't see

[babylonsister]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/22/AR2010092204665.html

The election campaigners we can't see

By David Axelrod
Thursday, September 23, 2010


All of Washington is in a frenzy, speculating about the outcome of the fall elections. Yet the development that could most tip the scales is getting far too little public attention. That hidden factor is the audacious stealth campaign being mounted by powerful corporate special interests that are vying to put their Republican allies in control of Congress and turn back common-sense reforms that strengthen America's middle class.

In Senate and House races across the country, industry-fueled front groups such as "Americans for Job Security" have spent tens of millions of dollars on negative ads as misleading as their benign-sounding names -- aimed almost entirely at Democratic candidates. These floodgates were opened by a January Supreme Court ruling that upset long-standing precedent by giving U.S. corporations an unfettered right to spend and influence our elections. Now, for the first time, Wall Street, the insurance lobby, oil companies and other special interests can fill our airwaves, mailboxes and phone lines right up until Election Day. And by funneling their money through not-for-profit social welfare and trade groups, they can do it without publicly acknowledging their participation.

Legislation to close this loophole and force the groups to publicly identify their chief donors on their ads has been blocked by a Republican minority in the Senate that's determined to reap this political windfall of special-interest support while keeping the American people in the dark. The Senate is scheduled to try again before the fall recess to break this logjam, possibly as soon as today, so Americans can learn who is behind these stealth campaigns.

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There is still time for the media to shine a light on these front groups. There is still time for an aroused public to rise up against this ominous special-interest hijacking of our elections. There is still time for candidates on both sides of the aisle to take the side of average Americans and challenge these groups to disclose their secret funders. And there is time for Republicans to stop blocking a law that would require these groups to disclose who is influencing our elections.

Pundits will spend a lot of time predicting who will win in November. But more is at stake than the fate of Democrats or Republicans. What's at stake is whether the powerful corporate special interests will go back to writing our laws or whether our democracy will remain where it belongs -- in the hands of the American people.

[FrenchieCat]

1. The media ain't about to do shit other than what they have been doing....

shilling for the GOP etal.

[JNelson6563]

2. You know it!

And so does everyone else here.

Julie

[Cha]

3. Of course they are.. and the brainwashed idiots who are

mainlining faux and limpbaugh and whomever else says to vote against Dems are going to vote against their brainwashed selves.

[OhioBlue]

4. k&r n/t