COURSEY: Who decides on the nominee?
Published: Wednesday, February 22, 2012 at 2:36 p.m.
Last Modified: Wednesday, February 22, 2012 at 2:36 p.m.
I used to think that primary voters in states such as Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida made the decision about who would represent their party in the next presidential election.
And maybe they once did. But that quaint idea has gone the way of the rotary telephone.
But, you say, the early primaries really do pick the nominee. The Republican field may still be muddled, but that's just because primary voters haven't yet made up their minds.
I beg to differ. I argue that it's not the millions of voters who are deciding (or not) in these primaries. It's the few super-rich “superdonors” who are holding sway.
This is where the real “1 percent” raises its ugly head.
An individual can “only” donate $2,500 to a presidential candidate. If you're like me, you would choke writing a check like that. I never gave a gift that big to my wife, let alone some guy in a suit who's never heard of me.
But people do, and that's fine. Get yourself enough $2,500 donations to run a presidential campaign and you can legitimately claim to have a wide circle of friends.
But in the new world of politics where corporations are people (see the U.S. Supreme Court decision on Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission), $2,500 is chump change. Sure, you'll still want to give the candidate a maxed-out donation in your name, but that's just a token gesture in this election cycle.
If you want to make a difference, give to a big political action committee, or – in the new political parlance – a Super PAC. And when you write that check, don't forget to add a lot of zeros.
Sheldon Adelson didn't forget. He has contributed $10,000,000.00 to Winning Our Future, a Super PAC supporting Newt Gingrich. Most observers believe that Adelson's money was the key in Gingrich's victory over Mitt Romney in South Carolina, and that without it the former House speaker wouldn't be able to stay in the race.
Did voters decide that? No, Adelson did. And he may not be done deciding. An upcoming profile of Adelson in Forbes magazine has this quote: “I might give $10 million or $100 million to Gingrich.”
It's not just Adelson, or Gingrich. A Texas businessman named Harold Simmons gave $100,000 to Americans for Rick Perry, another Super PAC, last June. Later, he gave $1 million to a different pro-Perry PAC. Then, when Perry flamed out, he wrote six-figure checks to Super PACs backing Gingrich and Mitt Romney. Talk about covering all the bases.
If you and I as individuals tried to do the same by giving a $2,500 donation to four different candidates, it would cost us $10,000. But Simmons, by giving to Super PACs that explicitly support specific candidates, has pumped $14 million into the Republican primary race in this election cycle, according to the New York Times.
And civics teachers are still telling students that voters pick our leaders.
This isn't a Republican vs. Democrat issue, because both sides take full advantage of the rules. President Barack Obama has decried the Citizens United decision and Super PACs, but he announced early this month that he supports and endorses the efforts of Priorities USA Action, the Super PAC that supports him and this week is running anti-Romney ads in Michigan in advance of that state's primary.
So, as with so many of today's issues, it's about the haves vs. the have-nots. The haves – the very few who have the means and the motives to give huge amounts of money to candidates – are using that money to decide who the have-nots will get to vote for in November.
The Supreme Court reportedly is re-thinking the wisdom of the Citizens United decision, and may take up a Montana case this year that has the potential to roll back parts of that ruling. That would be welcome relief.
But until we can come up with a system – most likely public campaign financing – that evens the playing field, the people writing the biggest checks are going to have the most influence in our political system.
I'd rather change that than change our civics textbooks.
Chris Coursey's blog offers a community commentary and forum, from issues of the day to the ingredients of life in Sonoma County.
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