Lawrence Lessig's $12 million campaign finance reform movement, Mayday PAC, hit the airwaves this week with its first independent expenditures: radio spots supporting its endorsee Jim Rubens (R; NH-Sen).
If you’re an American, then you believe we must find a way to reduce the influence of money in politics. But here's reality: the politicians aren’t gonna fix this for us. The existing system is way too comfortable for them and their cronies, and way too profitable. They won’t fix it, so we must. We started the Mayday PAC to be a citizen-funded SuperPAC to end all SuperPACs by electing a Congress committed to fundamental reform by 2016. In the Republican primary we’re supporting Jim Rubens, the only conservative in the nation to make ending this cronyism a top issue. It take real courage to be a Republican standing up to big money in Washington, and America needs that courage. So lead us, New Hampshire: vote for Jim Rubens, and show DC that the Republican base wants to end this corruption too.
Characterizing Rubens as "the only conservative in the nation to make ending this cronyism a top issue" might well leave Mayday's most recent right-wing extremist endorsee, Republican
Walter Jones (NC-03) -- who famously invented "Freedom Fries" back in 2003 -- wondering
"Wait...what does that make me, chopped liver?"
But it shouldn't. Unlike Rubens, Walter Jones doesn't even include campaign finance reform among his issues on his campaign's web site (although "Fishing" does make his Top Ten list). That, plus Jones has made a 20-year career in the House out of gleefully accepting millions in PAC money from the financial services and defense industries as he sat on both the House Financial Services and House Armed Services Committees. Ka-ching!
So maybe Mayday's right; maybe Rubens really is their only Republican date to the prom after all. Making Jones merely their back-up date, just in case Rubens' corsage doesn't show up before the limo pulls up the drive.
It will be interesting to hear how Mayday describes Jones once it starts rolling out ads for him in North Carolina. "Walter Jones: the only conservative in the nation who doesn't...uh...kick his dog. Or something."