And then it dawned on Ken Cuccinelli: I'm not going to get any of this money.
Congratulations, Dr. Brains. You
cracked the code.
Tea party activists are attacking a campaign finance rider in the $1.1 trillion spending bill that they view as a sneaky power grab by establishment Republicans designed to undermine outside conservative groups.
The provision would increase the amount of money a single donor could give to national party committees each year from $97,200 to as much as $777,600 by allowing them to set up different funds for certain expenses. The change would be a huge boost for party committees that have faced steep challenges in recent years from well-funded outside groups.
Wow, no kidding. Can't imagine why Sen. Mitch McConnell, facing a difficult 2016 Senate map, made that change one of his top priorities.
The same conservative activists have long advocated for looser campaign finance laws, but they argue the language of the rider in the 1,600-page bill gives the establishment wing an unfair advantage by tweaking the law specifically for donations to party committees.
“Conservatives support the First Amendment and believe there should be no limits on political speech,” said Ken Cuccinelli, president of the Senate Conservatives Fund. “Unfortunately, the new limits included in the omnibus only increase political speech for party insiders while silencing the majority of Americans who are fed up with Washington.”
Translation: we're all for screwing the little guy, as long as that little guy isn't us. For once, the tea party reflex of presuming a national conspiracy against them has worked in their favor. They found a real one!
Well, they're capable of learning, I'll give them that. A little late on the draw there, but at least they recognize that indeed, the purpose of weakening campaign finance laws is to allow individual wealthy people to singlehandedly nullify the political threats posed by entire non-wealthy political movements. Maybe next they'll figure out that massive public giveaways to banks do not, in fact, represent "free market capitalism", or maybe—more likely—they'll go right back to demanding even looser campaign finance laws by tomorrow morning.
Heck, Ken Cuccinelli couldn't even get through his condemnation of the current plan without praising the idea of doing, well, some iteration of the same thing. He's not angry that "party insiders" are seeking to profit from a new tidal wave of political spending, he's angry that he's not getting a piece of it.