Beyond Tuesday is where the right has focused its attention. Not that it wasn't obvious the minute the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission case was decided 10 months ago, but the right-wingers who had a few of their fingers pried off the nation's throat in 2006 and 2008 are preparing to get a better grip come 2012. Jim Rutenberg at The New York Times reports:
Officials with the two conservative groups, American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS — which are on track to spend well over $50 million combined this year, a sizable part of it from undisclosed donors — said they would continue advertising against Democrats as Congress returns, when decisions loom on the extension of the Bush-era tax cuts and immigration.
Robert M. Duncan, the chairman of American Crossroads, which, like Crossroads GPS, was started with help from the Republican strategists Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie, said he also informed major donors late last week that “research and development” was under way to make the groups even more effective in the next election, part of a pitch for continued investment toward a larger goal.
“It’s a bigger prize in 2012, and that’s changing the White House,” Mr. Duncan said. “We’ve planted the flag for permanence, and we believe that we will play a major role for 2012.”
However many seats the Republicans gain in Congress, Tuesday's outcome won't slow down the right's effort to cash in on the bonanza the 5-4 Supreme Court's decision provides them. One thing to expect: As more money flows into the coffers of American Crossroads, Crossroads GPS and other outsider groups, chances are that ad campaigns which in the past have clustered around elections will spread out, becoming a year-round affair regardless of when the elections are. Thus can Karl Rove, et al., put the cudgel to left-of-center approaches to governance and seek to transform every Democrat - regardless of voting record - into a radical in the minds of voters. Instead of merely having hidden contributors providing cash against, say, climate change legislation, the way the Koch brothers have done, and for right-wing think-tanks the way the late Joe Coors and others have done for nearly four decades, there may well be direct around-the-calendar attacks on incumbents.
As Rep. Alan Grayson said at Netroots Nation last summer: “We’re now in a situation where a lobbyist can walk into my office … and say, ‘I’ve got $5 million to spend, and I can spend it for you or against you. Which do you prefer?’”
The question is what liberals will do in response. In the past, such attacks have led many Democrats to move rightward in hopes of reducing the potential impact on their reelection chances. The effectiveness of this approach has varied depending on local conditions. But we can expect Wednesday morning to dawn with a lot of self-interested pundits saying the party should do exactly that.
Will there also be a move to take advantage of Citizens United the way rightists have done? Some Democrats think there should be:
“If this is what the playing field is going to look like, then we need to play to win,” said Gov. Edward G. Rendell of Pennsylvania. Saying that “people are talking about it already,” he added that those talks “will begin with a lot more intensity after Election Day if we get beaten badly.”
And, finally, how successful will efforts be to curtail the impact of outsider money? Grayson, who is in a difficult contest to retain his seat in Congress, introduced several legislative remedies this year, including Business Should Mind Its Own Business Act, the Corporate Propaganda Sunshine Act and the End the Hijacking of Shareholder Funds Act. The DISCLOSE Act, sponsored by Rep. Chris Van Hollen, passed the House in June, but was summarily executed by a Senate GOP firing squad in July.
Reps. Donna Edwards, Leonard Boswell and Paul Hodes in the House have introduced three constitutional amendments to control the corporate cash deluge. In the Senate, Max Baucus has produced one such amendment and Chris Dodd joined Tom Udall to introduce another. None of these seems headed anywhere. Only Edwards has obtained more than a handful of co-sponsors.
But a grassroots movement is building. Jeff Clements, the former assistant attorney general of Massachusetts, and John Bonifaz, legal director of Voter Action, have co-founded Free Speech for People. The ultimate goal: Amending the Constitution to make clear that free speech rights are for people, not corporations. You can read or listen to an interview with them here.
Even a successful amendment campaign won't stop the rightists in the next election cycle. Ultimately, getting an amendment passed requires approval by 38 states, and even the speediest effort, attacked every step of the way by the deeply funded groups such an amendment is designed to curb, could not possibly be in place before 2012.