Dollarocracy (56 page)

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Authors: John Nichols

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41
. Lawrence Lessig,
Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress—and a Plan to Stop It
(New York: Twelve, 2011), 99, 123.

42
. Quoted in David Sirota, “Post-Election, Politicos Cash In,”
salon.com
, November 9, 2012.

43
. Quoted in Kevin Bogardus, “K Street Headhunters Enamored with Upcoming Class of Retiring Lawmakers,”
The Hill
, January 19, 2012.

44
. Karl Taro Greenfeld, “Mr. Dodd Goes to Hollywood,”
Bloomberg Businessweek
, November 15, 2012, 80.

45
. Quoted in Moyers, “The Powell Memo.”

46
. Benjy Sarlin, “Jim DeMint Leaving Senate for Heritage Foundation,” Talking Points Memo, December 6, 2012.

47
. Jack Anderson, “Powell's Advice to Business,” syndicated column, September 28, 1972.

48
. Powell, “Confidential Memorandum.”

49
. John Rawls,
Political Liberalism
(New York: Columbia University Press: 1993), 361. For a review of John Rawls's assessment of the decision, see James Fleming, “Securing Deliberative Democracy,”
Fordham Law Review
72 (2004): 1435. See also “Statement in Support of Overturning Buckley v. Valeo,” joint statement organized by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, the National Voting Rights Institute, and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group,
http://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/legacy/d/buckley.pdf
. Rawls was a signer of the statement.

50
.
First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti.

51
. Ibid.

52
. Ibid.

53
. Hart Research Associates, “Protecting Democracy from Unlimited Corporate Spending,” results from a national survey among 1,000 voters on the
Citizens United
decision, conducted June 6–7, 2010.

54
.
First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti
, Rehnquist dissenting,
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=435&invol=765
.

55
. Ibid.

56
. Polls continue to show that a wide majority of Americans, including substantial numbers of conservatives, favor restrictions on money in politics. See Kevin Robillard, “Poll: No Unlimited Political Spending,”
Politico, July 18, 2012; and Ian Millhiser, “More Americans Believe in Witchcraft Than Agree with Citizens United,” Think Progress, April 24, 2012.

57
. Sergio Munoz, “John Roberts Is Still a Pro-Corporate Conservative, and the Media Shouldn't Be Fooled,” Media Matters, October 1, 2012,
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2012/10/01/john-roberts-is-still-a-pro-corporate-conservat/190237
.

58
. Robert Barnes, “Roberts Court Rulings on Campaign Finance Reveal Shifting Makeup, Forceful Role,”
Washington Post
, November 1, 2010.

59
. Ibid.

60
.
Federal Election Commission v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc.
, 551 U.S. 449; Nathaniel Persily, “The Floodgates Were Already Open: What Will the Supreme Court's Campaign Finance Ruling Really Change?,”
Slate
, January 25, 2010.

61
. Philip Rucker, “Citizens United Used ‘Hillary: The Movie' to Take on McCain-Feingold,”
Washington Post
, January 22, 2010.

62
. Quoted in Adam Liptak, “Justices Turn Minor Movie Case into a Blockbuster,”
New York Times
, January 22, 2010.

63
. Ibid.

64
.
Citizens United, Appellant v. Federal Election Commission
, 558 U.S. 310, 130 S.Ct. 876.

65
. Ibid.

66
. Stephen R. Weissman, “Campaign Finance Ruling's Likely Impact Overblown: The Supreme Court's Decision Striking Down Limits on Corporate Spending in Election Campaigns Is Unlikely to Change the Political Situation on the Ground,”
Los Angeles Times
, January 28, 2010.

67
. Jeff Zeleny, “GOP Captures House but Not Senate,”
New York Times
, November 2, 2010. See also Evan Mackinder, “A Republican Wave,”
OpenSecretsBlog
, November 3, 2010.

68
. Quoted in John Nichols and Robert W. McChesney, “The Money and Media Election Complex,”
The Nation
, November 10, 2010.

69
. John Nichols, “Unions Can't Compete with Corporate Campaign Cash,”
The Nation
, January 24, 2010. See also Open Secrets, “Super PACS,”
http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/superpacs.php
(accessed September 20, 2012).

70
. Quoted in Nichols, “Unions Can't Compete.”

71
. The
New York Times
in a June 22, 2012, editorial, “The Anti-Union Roberts Court,” wrote, “The Supreme Court's ruling this week in
Knox v. Service Employees International Union
is one of the most brazen of the Roberts court. It shows how defiantly the five justices act in advancing the aggressive conservatism of their majority on the court. The court's moderate liberals were rightly dismayed by the majority's willingness to breach court rules in pursuit of its agenda. In this labor union case, there is no getting around that the legal approach is indistinguishable from politics. The court's five conservatives ruled that in 2005, Local 1000 of the Service Employees International Union should have sent a notice to all nonmembers it represented when it imposed a temporary 25 percent increase in union dues for public-sector employees in California to fight two anti-union ballot measures.”

72
.
Knox v. Service Employees Int'l Union, Local 1000
, 132 S.Ct. 2277, 183 L. Ed. 2d 281, 193 LRRM 2641 (2012) [2012 BL 153979].

73
. Ibid.

74
. “The Court and Citizens United II,”
New York Times
, February 22, 2012.

75
. Rachel Leven, “Supreme Court Summarily Reverses Montana's Citizens United Case,”
The Hill
, June 25, 2012.

76
. Ibid.

77
. Quoted in Rachel Weiner, “Supreme Court's Montana Decision Strengthens Citizens United,”
Washington Post
, June 25, 2012.

78
. Jon Tester, “Tester: Citizens United Ruling a Threat to Democracy,” statement to Senate Judiciary Committee, September 12, 2012.

79
. Bernie Sanders, “Statement on Supreme Court Ruling in Montana Campaign Funding Case,” June 25, 2012.

80
. Ibid.

Chapter 4: The Bull Market

1
. “Meet Bridget,” Bridget Mary McCormack for Michigan Supreme Court Web site,
www.mccormackforjustice.com
.

2
. Ibid.

3
. Andrew Rosenthal, “Everyone Deserves Legal Representation,”
New York Times
, November 1, 2012.

4
. Ibid.

5
. Dawson Bell, “Michigan Supreme Court Candidate Defends Against Terrorism Claim,”
Detroit Free Press
, October 31, 2012.

6
. Ibid.

7
. Ryan J. Stanton, “Q&A with Ann Arbor's Bridget McCormack on Being Elected to the Michigan Supreme Court,”
AnnArbor.com
, November 11, 2012.

8
. Quoted in Meg James, “Cable Television Gaining in Advertising Revenues, but Not Political Dollars,”
Los Angeles Times
, June 17, 2011,
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2011/06/cable-television-gaining-in-advertising-revenue-but-not-political-dollars.html
.

9
. “A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right,” Thomas Paine wrote at the beginning of
Common Sense
, the book that helped ignite the American Revolution, “and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom.” In many respects, this is the case with how Americans have come to regard TV political advertising as the natural form of political communication, and election campaigns appear unimaginable without them.

10
. See Greg Mitchell,
The Campaign of the Century: Upton Sinclair's E.P.I.C. Race for Governor of California and the Birth of Media Politics
(New York: Random House, 1992). See also Jill Lepore, “On the Campaign Trail,”
New Yorker
, September 19, 2012,
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/09/a-history-of-political-consultants.html#ixzz2BGDZNINh
.

11
. This point is made in an excellent discussion of this rise of political advertising in Lizabeth Cohen,
A Consumer's Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America
(New York: Random House, 2003), 332.

12
. See David Halberstam,
The Fifties
(New York: Random House, 1993), 227.

13
. Vance Packard,
The Hidden Persuaders
(New York: Pocket Books, 1957), 156.

14
. Ibid., 161.

15
. Quoted in Halberstam,
The Fifties
, 229–230.

16
. Cohen,
A Consumer's Republic
, 333.

17
. Quoted in Halberstam,
The Fifties
, 231, 232.

18
. Packard,
The Hidden Persuaders
, 172.

19
. Quoted in “Admen Shouldn't Try to Take Over Politics: Truman,”
Advertising Age
, September 22, 1948, 2.

20
. Quoted in Packard,
The Hidden Persuaders
, 160.

21
. Cohen,
A Consumer's Republic
, 336.

22
. Theodore H. White,
The Making of the President 1960
(New York: Atheneum House, 1961), 312. See also W. J. Rorabaugh,
The Real Making of the President: Kennedy, Nixon, and the 1960 Election
(Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2009). Television plays a key role in this account, but TV campaign advertising itself plays a small role in comparison to what would soon follow.

23
. Robert Mann,
Daisy Petals and Mushroom Clouds: LBJ, Barry Goldwater, and the Ad That Changed American Politics
(Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2011), 108.

24
. Joe Klein,
Politics Lost
(New York: Broadway Books, 2006), 17.

25
. All quoted in Mann,
Daisy Petals
, 111–113.

26
. Joe McGinniss,
The Selling of the President
(New York: Penguin, 1988), xv, xxi, xxii. This book was originally published by Simon & Schuster in 1969.

27
. There are numerous totals given the TV political spending in 1968. The standard figure immediately after the election was $60 million. See Malachi C. Topping and Lawrence W. Lichty, “Political Programs on National Television Networks: 1968,”
Journal of Broadcasting
15, no. 2 (Spring 1971): 161. After review, we have elected to use the figure provided in the 1997 congressional research report that drew from research by the Federal Communications Commission on the subject: Joseph E. Cantor, Denis Steven
Rutkus, and Kevin B. Greely, “Free and Reduced-Rate Time for Political Candidates,” Report prepared for the Congressional Research Service, July 7, 1997, 4–5.

28
. “Study Shows Pols' Ads Less Credible Than Product Ads,”
Advertising Age
, February 26, 1973, 10.

29
. Bill Richards, “Sen. Mathias Re-Election Drive Opens,”
Washington Post
, February 3, 1974.

30
. White,
The Making of the President
, 312.

31
. Quoted in Halberstam,
The Fifties
, 231.

32
. Quoted in Michael M. Franz, Paul B. Freedman, Kenneth M. Goldstein, and Travis N. Ridout,
Campaign Advertising and American Democracy
(Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2008), 3.

33
. “David Ogilvy's Timeless Rules for Advertising and Marketing,”
bighow.com
,
http://bighow.com/news/david-ogilvys-timeless-rules-for-advertising-and-marketing
.

34
. Robert Spero,
The Duping of the American Voter
(New York: Lippincott & Crowell, 1980), 4.

35
. Claudia Caplan, “We Don't Do Political Advertising—and for Good Reason: The Risks Outweigh the Rewards,”
adage.com
, October 29, 2012.

36
. Quoted in Susan Krashinsky, “Veteran Ad Man Reflects on Election Ads' Negativity,”
theglobeandmail.com
, November 11, 2012.

37
. Although the trade publication
Advertising Age
notes that with the emergence of consultants to run the modern political campaign, most advertising agencies are not controlling campaigns like they do commercial accounts, there is still plenty of money to go around. See Elizabeth Wilner, “Toothpaste vs. Candidates: Why the Mad Men Approach Doesn't Work in Politics,”
Advertising Age
, August 9, 2012.

38
. Bob Jeffrey, “A Sense of What Can Be,”
jwt.com
, August 28, 2012.

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