PD Editorial: Mega money in campaign marketplace

Is the presidency a commodity, a flesh-and-blood analogue of oil, silver and heating oil?

The question may be answering itself as the line blurs between campaigns and super PACs, the turbo-charged money machines dedicated to electing - or defeating - individual candidates.

Jeb Bush, a not-yet-declared candidate for the Republican nomination, boasted to about 300 big donors at a private gathering in Miami Beach this past weekend that Right to Rise, his single-candidate political action committee, or super PAC, raised more money in 100 days than any other modern GOP political operation.

The former Florida governor may even cede control of his campaign to the super PAC because of its prodigious fundraising power, according to an Associated Press report.

Well, as the late Jesse Unruh said, money is the mother’s milk of politics.

Indeed, nearly all of the top-tier presidential candidates are backed by at least one super PAC, committees that can accept as much money as any individual, union or corporation is willing to give. Candidates, in contrast, can accept a maximum of $2,700 from individuals and $5,000 from political action committees.

Even critics of the system have benefited.

When she announced her campaign earlier this month, Hillary Clinton hinted that she would support a constitutional amendment targeting “unaccountable money” in American politics. At about the same time, a super PAC formed to support her disbanded, with some of its staff moving to the official Clinton campaign organization.

She still needs to answer questions about mega-fundraising by her family foundation.

Big money is nothing new in presidential politics, but it’s surging to new highs as post-Watergate reforms are swept aside in the wake of two major court rulings in 2010.

The first was Citizens United, a U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing unlimited spending by unions and corporations that previously were barred from trying to influence federal elections. The second was a D.C Court of Appeals decision that erased a $5,000 limit on donations to political action committees formed to support or oppose a candidate.

Between them, these rulings enabled the super PAC system that allows a handful of mega-donors to outspend official campaign organizations.

In 2012, with his own campaign sputtering, Newt Gingrich was able to stay in the race thanks to the largesse of casino magnate Sheldon Adelson. Earlier this year, industrialists David and Charles Koch began soliciting donations for a $1?billion effort in 2016. Bush’s early fundraising efforts were so successful, the Washington Post reported, that donors were asked to limit their gifts to $1 million.

By law, campaigns cannot coordinate efforts with super PACs. But there has been little enforcement, and many believe the restriction is routinely ignored.

Voters are understandably cynical about money and politics, a sentiment fueled by the failure of Congress and the Federal Elections Commission to restore accountability to campaign finance since the rise of super PACs and their dark cousins, social welfare committees, which are used to shield the identities of donors.

Should Bush choose to leave key parts of his campaign, including TV advertising and direct mail - for better or worse, the main methods of communication with voters - to an outside fundraising operation, it would not only be unprecedented, it would reinforce the idea that the nation’s highest office is for sale.