Freedom's Deep, Deep, Deep Pockets

You've probably heard about the Democrats' fundraising edge thus far in terms of congressional campaign committee fundraising. Well, Brad Plumer notes that that edge will be blown way out of the water if Sheldon Adelson's "Freedom's Watch" outfit really spends $250 million on the 2008 elections.

It's always worth keeping in mind that inequality in the United States has allowed certain concentrations of wealth to exist that, in principle, mean things could get really crazy. Adelson could decide that $250 million is chump change and that he actually wants to spend five billion dollars on the 2008 election, and then give $1 billion to each of his five children, and then then live very comfortably for the rest of his life on his remaining $1.5 billion. Now I'm not saying that's going to happen, but it could. And Adelson's only #15 on the Forbes 400 list.

Comments

Or noted conservative George Soros could spend millions of dollars trying to influence U.S. elections. Hey, wait a minute...

Posted by sd | January 22, 2008 11:20 AM

I don't know how he's doing today, but the numbers in the link are, I think, almost three years old. More recent information has him closer to #6 worldwide, and would leave him with a remaining 13 bil., IIRC.

It's good to be the king.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | January 22, 2008 11:21 AM

Well, it could be worse.

Hasn't the net worth of "Crazy Adelson the Casino King" fallen by about 50% over the last year? And once his next hedge-fund quarterly reports come back, let's hope he gets a pretty big "surprise."

There's always a silver lining to total financial meltdowns...

Posted by RKU | January 22, 2008 11:25 AM

"Adelson could decide that $250 million is chump change and that he actually wants to spend five billion dollars on the 2008 election, . . . Now I'm not saying that's going to happen, but it could."

My question to Matt is "So what?" Are you saying that it should be illegal for him to spend his own money in what amounts to the exercise of his First Amendment rights of free speech, to peacably assemble and petition the government?

The liberals' fixation on money in politics is so amusing. Adelson could give that 5 billion to Dennis Kucinich and does anyone here really believe that would vault him to the nomination and the White House? If the answer is no, then what's the point of any campaign finance law?

Posted by Chicounsel | January 22, 2008 11:30 AM

Matt,

This isn't a new problem. For more than a century, there have been enormous disparities of wealth in this country. I don't mean to suggest that there hasn't been a recent and dramatic widening of the gap - just that, if what you're worried about is the ability of a handful of individuals to buy their way to political power, it doesn't make a huge difference whether the wealthiest American has $5 billion or $50 billion.

What is new and disturbing is the amount of money expended in national political campaigns. That's a runaway train that's not coming back to the station. It's actually an ironic consequence of the death of the old political machines. It didn't used to matter how many ads you ran, you couldn't win Chicago without the Daleys or the five boroughs without the support of their respective bosses. You couldn't take union households without the backing of the unions, either, nor most of the Southern states without the Democratic Party establishment. The old system was corrupt as hell - I'm not defending it. But the shift to a media campaign has opened the sluicegates. Small differences in financing are rarely decisive - few candidates or ballot measures pass because one side spends 10% or even 50% more than the other. But when one side spends five or ten times as much, it's a different story.

So it's not progressive taxation that's going to solve the problem of the Adelsons of the world (or, for that matter, of the Bloombergs or Soroses). It's going to take a decision of the Supreme Court, or a constitutional amendment, deciding that money is not the same thing as speech - that spending on political causes can be legislatively restricted. That will happen when we arrive at a national consensus that this sort of thing is corrosive to democracy, and not a moment before. And I'm not holding my breath.

Posted by Cynic | January 22, 2008 11:34 AM

Adelson could give that 5 billion to Dennis Kucinich and does anyone here really believe that would vault him to the nomination and the White House?

I don't know. Let's try it!

Posted by James Gary | January 22, 2008 11:39 AM

There would be some very positive redistributional effects from what's his face spending 5 billion on a lost and futile cause.

Posted by southpaw | January 22, 2008 11:39 AM

Yeah, it would redistribute those $5 billion to Warner, Disney, and Clear Channel.

Posted by Tom Scudder | January 22, 2008 11:47 AM

Actually, it is much cheaper just to start a tv network, like Murdoch did, and turn it over to the Republican party. The upside to that is that press figures just salivate when they consider the money and prestige of getting on tv, so they will voluntarily float any lies you want to put out there, as it serves their self interest. See Howard Kurz columns, circa 1998-2008, for how the press will tie itself into knots in the attempt to maintain that the Republican Party's tv network is fair and balanced.

Posted by roger | January 22, 2008 11:48 AM

Lets see. In 2004, we've got these 527's that spent over $10 million for Democrats:

America Coming Together: $78,040,480
Joint Victory Campaign 2004: $72,588,053
Media Fund: $57,694,580
Service Employees International Union: $47,695,646
MoveOn.org: $21,565,803
New Democrat Network: $12,524,063
Citizens for a Strong Senate: $10,228,515

Compare to Republican 527's:

Progress for America: $35,631,378
Swift Vets & POWs for Truth: $22,565,360
College Republican National Cmte: $17,260,655
Club for Growth: $11,943,415

As far as I can tell, the Adelson $250 million would basically only level the playing field.

Posted by Al | January 22, 2008 11:50 AM

BTW, Brad Plumer is being way, way misleading when he compares the Adelson $250 million pledge to Moveon.org's $21 million spent in 2004, given the Moveon.org's spending was only the fifth highest spending 527 group - it spent much, much less than the top spending groups.

Not that I'm surprised that Plumer would be misleading.

Posted by Al | January 22, 2008 11:54 AM

Re Matthews' comment "It's always worth keeping in mind that inequality in the United States has allowed certain concentrations of wealth to exist that, in principle, mean things could get really crazy"
------------
Actually, things get REALLY crazy when
a) Irresponsible politics bring on a painful depression and
b) the rabble discover that $1 BILLION in campaign contributions can be defeated with $15 in bullets.

Posted by Don Williams | January 22, 2008 12:05 PM

The US Chamber of Commerce is planning to spend $60 million in 2008 against any candidate who, say, doesn't think it would be a dandy idea to enact another massive marginal rate tax cut for the ultra-rich.

Posted by dry_fish | January 22, 2008 12:10 PM

Re Don Williams

Does Mr. Williams think that Adelson is going to outspend his hero, Hiam Saben?

Posted by SLC | January 22, 2008 12:17 PM

God damn, dude--the guy's name is spelled Haim Saban.

From "Porky's," 1982:

Tim: Anybody wanna go fly a kite with me tonight? I hear it's great weather for flying KITES! I wonder if there's any KITES around here we can fly!
Brian Schwartz: Hey listen, Cavanaugh. It's not kite, it's KIKE! K-I-K-E, "kike." You know, you're too stupid to even be a good bigot!

Posted by James Gary | January 22, 2008 12:22 PM

Are you saying that it should be illegal for him to spend his own money in what amounts to the exercise of his First Amendment rights of free speech, to peacably assemble and petition the government?

Matt might not say it, but I will: fuck, yeah.

How much is Al receiving, btw? Because the phenomenon of the paid troll is my tip for an interesting commission, now that we've done the email forwarding racket.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | January 22, 2008 12:25 PM

Adelson could give that 5 billion to Dennis Kucinich and does anyone here really believe that would vault him to the nomination and the White House? If the answer is no, then what's the point of any campaign finance law?

If spending money has no effect on election outcomes, then the people spending the millions must be pretty stupid.

Posted by KCinDC | January 22, 2008 12:26 PM

Yes, Don Williams' analysis is exactly correct.

This has been a pretty standard historical pattern in the decay of republics, perhaps best exemplified in the case of Rome.

Gradually, for various reasons, money/corruption comes to totally dominate the electoral process, leading to a decay of democratic institutions, the loss of popular faith in government, and the decline of the loyalty of the armed forces and its leaders to the constitutional system.

Then, various political disasters produced by such decay and corruption persuade one or more military figures to "take forceful action." Usually, one aspect of such action involves rounding up the numerous Sheldon Adelsons and putting them all to death, often together with their wives and children, and simply confiscating all their vast wealth. In Rome, this was known as the period of the "proscriptions."

Under this analysis, it's really quite remarkable how humanely Czar Vladimir I handled those Oligarchic troublemakers in Russia. I tend to doubt their American equivalents will escape so lightly.

Posted by RKU | January 22, 2008 12:28 PM

Color me skeptical. You don't typically become a billionaire without having some sense for money, and the GOP in '08 is such an electoral catastrophe in waiting (c'mon, if the Republicans thought they were competitive, you really think Mitt Romney would be among the most credible candidates?) that throwing even $100M seems like a facially terrible investment.

Of slightly more interest to me is whether all those media sources who have spent years now whispering about the diabolical machinations behind George Soros's political spending are going to bat an eyelash over this. I'm sure Bill O'Reilly will lead off with this story soon.

Posted by Jack Roy | January 22, 2008 12:30 PM

And to explain my 'fuck yeah': I have the right to call my congresscritter. I don't have the right to spend the entire day hitting redial. In this regard, the 'right of the people' is to be distinguished from 'the rights of persons x 300m', much as it may pain libertarian shut-ins.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | January 22, 2008 12:34 PM

How much is Al receiving, btw? Because the phenomenon of the paid troll is my tip for an interesting commission, now that we've done the email forwarding racket.

I don't think they get paid. I do believe, however, that the conservative movement puts out talking points that its followers will post in comments threads. If you read the posts of these people, there isn't a coherent political philosophy informing them; it's just exactly the sort of slapdash opposition research and sound-good-but-shallow-as-a-wading-pool discourse that the conservative movement disseminates.

Posted by Dilan Esper | January 22, 2008 12:38 PM

Interesting link to the Forbes list. Out of curiosity, I scrolled up to see who was richer than Adelson. First of all, Matt's link seems to be out of date, try this one.

First of all, Adelson is apparently up to number three. The top 25 also apparently includes four different Waltons — wow — and three different Mars, two Kochs, three different fortunes that began at Microsoft, and one mayor of New York City.

Posted by Cyrus | January 22, 2008 12:40 PM

Cynic,

The only secure basis for effective political opposition is private wealth. The power to suppress that opposition would be far more corrosive to democracy than its absence.

Posted by Mixner | January 22, 2008 12:41 PM

I found that WaPo article funny in one way. They talked about how MoveOn was funded by small donors. If I was a middling Republican, why should I help fund Freedom's Watch? Why not just the the super rich guys that founded it fund it?

Posted by Joe Klein's conscience | January 22, 2008 12:50 PM

The only secure basis for effective political opposition is private wealth. The power to suppress that opposition would be far more corrosive to democracy than its absence.

What the hell is mixner talking about? I'm not sure what context this is supposed to make sense in. A minority party context? General opposition to the government? It seems like if we want a democratic system, the majority should be getting their way most of the time. I think it might be better than our current system. If you are worried about government power, private wealth is hardly helpful- it can just be confiscated.

Posted by mpowell | January 22, 2008 1:03 PM

Mixner:

No one's talking about conferring the power to surpress opposition. In fact, I rather think that the internet has had a dramatic democratizing effect on raising funds for political causes, eliminating much of the start-up capital that once was needed, and making it cost effective to raise major funds in small increments.

So yes, private property is a cornerstone of our republic. And I fully support your right and mine to donate hundreds or thousands of dollars to political causes that we support. But not tens of thousands. Not millions. And certainly not billions. Enormous donations have a distorting effect, elevating the views of the few over the views of the many. That's what I object to. Let every American make small donations, and the most viable candidates and causes will be those which appeal to the greatest number of people who are willing to back their opinions with financial sacrifice. Let every American make unlimited donations, and those who earn or inherit the greatest amount of wealth will have the greatest impact on our system. Why should Sam Walton's heirs have more say than I do? I actually work for a living.

Posted by Cynic | January 22, 2008 1:13 PM

My question to Matt is "So what?" Are you saying that it should be illegal for him to spend his own money in what amounts to the exercise of his First Amendment rights of free speech, to peacably assemble and petition the government?

The liberals' fixation on money in politics is so amusing...

Thought experiment, hotshot. Non-citizens have freedom of speech under US law too.
So let's go to 2012. Governor Tom Bennett is running for president. His campaign, it transpires, is almost entirely funded by a $2 billion donation from an extremely wealthy Chinese businessman (and former PLA general).

Do you really not have a problem with this?

Posted by ajay | January 22, 2008 1:25 PM

As reported in the NY Times 10-2-07, Freedom's Watch was conceived at the Republican Jewish Coalition meeting last March and has advertised pro-Iraq War and against the Iranian president. The war with Iraq, waged to benefit Israel, is bankrupting the country and the last thing we need now is war with Iran, also to benefit Israel. Indeed, due to the insanity of our foreign policy, America, Israel's cash cow, has developed mad cow disease and is not long for this world.

Posted by J.E. Dundee | January 22, 2008 2:14 PM

Are you saying that it should be illegal for him to spend his own money in what amounts to the exercise of his First Amendment rights of free speech, to peacably assemble and petition the government?

pseudonymous's and ajay's points aside, one possible answer is that we should prevent such extreme concentrations of wealth. John Rawls thought extreme concentrations of wealth were bad precisely because that much money led to disproportionate political power (and meant that people without the money were shut out of political power in important ways).

Posted by Matt Weiner | January 22, 2008 2:44 PM

one possible answer is that we should prevent such extreme concentrations of wealth.

I'll nod, sadly, at Don and RKU: history suggests that buying elections ultimately results in severe haircuts, of the French variety, and that's not a good solution.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | January 22, 2008 3:41 PM

No one's talking about conferring the power to surpress opposition.

Of course you are. Suppression of the right to spend money on speech is suppression of the right to speech.

So yes, private property is a cornerstone of our republic. And I fully support your right and mine to donate hundreds or thousands of dollars to political causes that we support. But not tens of thousands. Not millions. And certainly not billions. Enormous donations have a distorting effect, elevating the views of the few over the views of the many.

Political power also has a distorting effect, elevating the views of those who have it over the views of their opponents. That is why it is so important to protect the right of opponents to mount an effective opposition. And that means money.

That's what I object to. Let every American make small donations, and the most viable candidates and causes will be those which appeal to the greatest number of people who are willing to back their opinions with financial sacrifice. Let every American make unlimited donations, and those who earn or inherit the greatest amount of wealth will have the greatest impact on our system.

So what does this mean in terms of actual law? How much will I be allowed to spend on my magazine or newspaper or radio station or TV station or website or mass mailing or publishing house, etc., etc. to present my views?

Posted by Mixner | January 22, 2008 7:03 PM

Soros was mentioned in the first comment; he "only" spent $20-25 million on the 2004 election, and I remember reading about Republicans gleefully criticizing him after the fact, saying that he was trying to "throw the election for pocket change" or something like that.

$250 million is more than pocket change.

Posted by GC | January 22, 2008 7:18 PM

The fundamental flaw of "democracy" - that the opinions of the voters are based on anything but emotion and whoever can fund the most propaganda.

This is how the state wins every time, no matter who you vote for.

Chimps. Morons. Expecting things to get better based on a system like this.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | January 22, 2008 7:35 PM