Asymmetrical Information

"I wonder if his political activity will have a real cost.'

No more than Scaife's

I think the real story is how one man can move that much money into the political without directly financing a candidate. It highlights the dubious nature of "think-tanks" and commentators. Money can by media, and media gets votes. Republican or Democrat no matter.

Why else would bush and Gore need 200 million dollars each to run for office?

Robert Caro's biography of Lyndon Johnson, "Means of Ascent" is a good story depicting the overwhelming effect money and media can have.

The guy's just exercising his First Admendment rights. What's wrong with that? I think it is pretty lame and thin skinned not to do business with him because of that. Sounds like the liberals who refuse to buy stuff at WalMart. Why don't we all boycott all of Warren Buffett's companies while we are at it. Where does the childishness end?

He's worth $7 BILLION dollars. If you do any kind of currency trading, you're doing business with Soros. The point is that he's so rich and he's so spread out that any 'boycott' is fairly pointless.

Let's put it this way: his $15M contribution (so far) is, as a percentage of his net worth, the equivalent of someone with a $50,000 net worth buying something that's $100 (plus tax).

No Bush supporter is allowed to spend an equivalent amount? How do you figure that?

She's pretending never to have heard of Scaife. Knowing about here selective awareness of the facts is key to understanding Jane's position on just about anything.

What "position", Bones? I asked a question.

It's my impression, Kevin -- and I could be wrong -- that a single individual running a "vote for Bush" campaign would run afoul of our campaign finance laws, while a single individual running a "vote for ABB" campaign will not. That's how it's been explained to me, but I'm open to correction.

You know, I'd like to see a few news commentaries calling Soros crazy for saying he wants to spend this money because Bush reminds him of Hitler; we had plenty of those stories calling Scaife obsessed (if not evil) because he thought Clinton was Satan.

For the record, I DO think Scaife was a solitary weirdo with an ax to grind, but between Soros' Bush = Hitler intimations and his statements that rich Jews are partly responsible for anti-Semitism, he makes Scaife look almost mainstream.

soros at once evokes anti-semitism (bush = hitller) and apologizes for it (he is responsible for anti-semitism)

so he's incoherent, arrogant, and likely loony

and bones... Jane can't spend 15M saying vote for bush

she could spend 15M saying don't vote for (player to be named later)

of course, we'll see what the law is after the supremes have chopped it up

Okay, perhaps I am just not clued in here. A conservative is complaining that a liberal has the financial ability to run an ABB campaign, which he is planning to do. Conversely, Bush can not get a very wealthy conservative the blow $15 mil on a "Yeah Bush!" campaign because that would run afoul of campaing finance reforms. Do I have this right?

Perhaps I am mistaken here, but couldn't Bush, the (what is it now?) $200 million dollar man just get someone to spend their money on an ABD (anything but democrat) campaign or even two people to spend their $15 million dollars each on an ABC (anything but Clark) and an ABD (anything but Dean...not to be confused with the previous ABD)campaign?

And why is this a problem, because you didn't think of it first?

Quit your whining.

My point is not "waaaa, it's not fair" . . . I'm not necessarily going to vote for Bush, and I'm certainly not going to get emotionally worked up about George Soros. My point is that throwing $15m into defeating Bush is, as hey says, the de facto equivalent of donating $15m to get whoever the Democratic candidate is elected. Rich people are still getting involved, only in an increasingly distorted and unaccountable way.

This shows the absurdity of "Campaign finance reform." It doesn't, it just moves the money elsewhere. As Kate pointed out, Bush's friends will do the same.

The only real way to take money out of political campaigns is to take money out of government. As long as the US government taxes a lot, spends a lot, and regulates a lot there are going to people and groups who are going to try to manipulate elections for their own financial benefit.

My idea of real CFR is to use the internet and accept the fact that some people are just going donate more money than others. Allow unlimited donations but only by individuals and require that they be posted with the name of the donor within 72 hours on a candidate's web site. Put the money upfront where everyone can see it. This will get rid of the farce of publicly financed campaigns and allow the politicians to get out the of business of dialing for dollars forced on them by the spending caps. Right now they spend way too much time fund raising and not enough time working through the issues and governing.

Try not to think of this as a "Democrats versus Republicans" or a "Conservatives versus Liberals" thing -- it's not; it's just an illustration of the failure of the so-called "campaign finance reform". To argue that Soros isn't blowing $15m on influencing the course of the campaign is ludicruous. You think Dean (or whoever ends up winning the Democratic nomination) will, if he wins the presidency, somehow fail to notice Soros' efforts on his behalf, whether the CFM law considers them "efforts on his behalf" or not?

The knee-jerk liberal reaction is just as tempting as the knee-jerk conservative reaction, depending on your particular bias, but really, this ought to be something where Bush/anti-Bush doesn't even enter into it. Because if this is okay, I can guarantee that the next time there's a sitting Democratic president, some conservative rich guy is going to do exactly the same thing.

Knowing about here selective awareness of the facts is key to understanding Jane's position on just about anything.

Intersting postulate...but what is the secret to understanding bones' position on just about anything? Is sniffing glue followed by throwing one's self down a flight of concrete stairs the only way to "get the feeling," or is there a more convenient approach?

Inquiring minds want to know.

CWP wrote:

You think Dean (or whoever ends up winning the Democratic nomination) will, if he wins the presidency, somehow fail to notice Soros' efforts on his behalf, whether the CFM law considers them "efforts on his behalf" or not?

Which begs the question, will the Democratic nominee whomever it turns out to be, be grilled during the debates by the moderator about his or her position on currency speculation?

Kate wrote

Perhaps I am mistaken here, but couldn't Bush, the (what is it now?) $200 million dollar man just get someone to spend their money on an ABD (anything but democrat) campaign or even two people to spend their $15 million dollars each on an ABC (anything but Clark) and an ABD (anything but Dean...not to be confused with the previous ABD) campaign?

It seems to me that if the GOP wanted to sink Dean or Clark, the easiest thing to do would be to let them associate themselves and their campaigns with a guy who rants about how Bush is a “Nazi.”

Not sure I understand the controversy, or the reform law. It seems to me that spending money on a "Bush is a disaster" campaign is spending money criticizing Bush policies.

Is it really illegal for someone to spend $15 million on an ad campaign talking about how brilliant administration policies are?

A) I have to admit that anony-mouse cracks me up on a regular basis.

B) I also have to admit that posters who base their entire post on the premise that Megan is a conservative also crack me up.

And that's it for me, tonight. Easily amused, admittedly.

The rules page for the "Bush in 30 Seconds" competition says:

MoveOn.org Voter Fund is a so-called section 527 political organization, and is prohibited from expressly advocating for the election or removal of specific candidates for federal elections. In other words, your ads can say lots of different things about George Bush and his administration, but you are not allowed to say that people should vote for or against him.

I have long held Paul's opinion, with a little fine tuning - rather than having to post the contribution within 72 hours, I would have it so that you could only spend the money once the contribution had been posted for 72 hours.

(First, a moment of sincere flattery for the beloved host: good to have you back, Ms. Galt.)

Whenever I hear of CFR, I always have to think of the root cause: the people are ignorant. In a more perfect world, everybody would keep a sharp eye on political and civic concerns (or listen to trusted watchful sources) and base their votes on those observations. In such a world, misleading campaign ads would have little effect.

In our world, people go about their everyday lives until late October or so and make a frantic yet cursory search for information. Here snippets of headlines from days gone by and misleading campaign ads can sway many votes.

In my mind, the real solution involves open and honest government

Whatever one might think about Soros (having never met the man and only read a limited amount about him, I won't hazard an opinion), I don't get the conservative outrage at the contribution. Let's be clear here, very rich people have been favoring Republican candidates with their contributions for years and the trend in the last 5 years or so has become so pronounced that campaigns are no longer fought on a level playing field.

Does a $15 million contribution to a liberal-leaning organization corrupt the political process? Sure. But so do the millions given to the conservative (really, reactionary) organizations by the Scaifes and Coors of this world.

Is it slightly hypocritical for liberals to cheer (albeit sotto voce) Soros' contribution? Yes, but then again, democracy is not a suicide pact and not to welcome these sorts of contributions is tantamount to unilateral disarmament.

Good campaign finance reform legislation is difficult to craft. I suspect that perfect campaign finance reform legislation is an impossibility. But don't complain when one wealthy individual makes a large contribution to a liberal cause unless you're willing to back some reasonable compromise on spending limits.

Stuart,

Thanks for the clarification. So a Bush supporter IS allowed to spend $15 million on ads that say things like,

"Thank you, President Bush, for your heroic efforts to abolish estate taxes."

Is that correct?

Actually, Stuart, Republicans have the advantage in small donors; it's the Democrats who have historically depended on a few very rich people.

stuart...

additionally, the dems aren't sotto voce supporting or cheering this spending... they're loudly approving it

and these are the specific people that complained about the corrosive powerof money in politics

we're just saying they're lying sacks of fecal matter, and that cfr is completely dishonest, just like most politics

" Let's be clear here, very rich people have been favoring Republican candidates with their contributions for years..."

That is ridiculous. See, for instance:

http://www.opensecrets.org/pressreleases/DonorDemog.asp

" Among very wealthy donors, Democrats reigned supreme. Contributors of $1 million or more gave 92 percent of their money to Democrats, and 8 percent to the GOP."

David Perron:

"B) I also have to admit that posters who base their entire post on the premise that Megan is a conservative also crack me up."

Sometimes if it walks like a duck and it talks like a duck you have to assume it's a duck, regardless of its protestations that it's not.

It was my impression that Richard (?) and Betsy DeVos of Michigan have done something similar to what Soros proposes. Working with Tom DeLay, they've donated millions of dollars to nominally nonpartisan organizations designed to identify and encourage conservative voters. I remember this as a perpetual story in Roll Call around '99-'00.

The DeVoses were self-consciously following the lead of the unions. What Soros is promising to do is not new, except in the scale and reliance on a single individual, instead of a wealthy couple, instead of thousands of union members.

I posted when I'd read halfway down the list of comments, before someone gave the magic number: 527. I may be incorrect about the specific intentions of the DeVos funds, but they were destined for 527 groups, they were flowing in large amounts, and Tom DeLay was their contact.

hi all,
i just can't help but think that if soros had spent 250 million dollars, bought himself a newspaper, or a tv network, spent a billion more, and put folks in it who were decidedly anti-bush, required a daily memo of news points that had to be ennunciated by his news-staff at every opportunity, and worked to basically bring about the president's downfall, we could all say--another liberal media bashing contest, or maybe, hey, the "anti-fox" news station has arrived...

would this feel like a use of his money that folks would find more palatable, or would this also be evidence that soros was a big fat doody-head?

as for the hypocrisy charge re democrats, as i remember it, the "reform" of campaign finance laws was also something that had bi-partisan support in passing--feingold-mccain or some such, right?

Uh Kate, I think he was referring to the commentors who presume to ascribe a long laundry list of "this is conservative" baggage to the host, then go about attacking on that premise.

Sort of a straw man approach, or in this case, entire hay bales.

Sometimes if it walks like a duck and it talks like a duck you have to assume it's a duck, regardless of its protestations that it's not.

The real question, tho, is whether Megan weighs the same as a duck.

Because then we'd have to burn her.

bush does = hitler
only with the potential to be worse.....

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