September 2004

Polls, Ads and McCain Feingold

Michael points out the same problem with Keyes position on polling, but takes a shot at McCain-Feingold for outlawing issue ads and wonders why I don’t address that….

First, issue ads aren’t illegal in the most basic sense. What are illegal are issue ads run by organizations that are incorporated and mention a federal candidate on TV or radio (print is not included in the regulations) within 30/60 days of the election. That doesn’t make it illegal to run such ads, it requires that if you want to run such ads, you have to form a Political Action Committee or run it as a unincorporated non-profit that can demonstrate the cash is raised from individuals.

Political Action Committees are formed with the express intent to electioneer and may make as many ads as they wish as long as they do not coordinate with a federal candidate’s campaign. The coordination is one limitation, the only other limitation is that of how much one can donate to a PAC which is limited per election cycle. That is considered by some to be a limitation on free speech by some, others, including the Supreme Court argue it is only a limitation on a monetary transaction. In fact, individuals who wish to buy media time or otherwise support candidates can do so alone so one can spend as much money as they wish on electioneering, but when they band together there are donation limits.

Much of the confusion on the matter is shown when people blast the MoveOn ads as somehow being the work of 527s that don’t report donations and have no limits. That isn’t true–MoveOn Pac runs the commercials and that is also why they mention the President specifically and say to vote against him. I believe Sierra Club also has a PAC as well as a 527.

So you can run issue ads as an individuals or you can have them run as a PAC with donation limits to the PAC.

I don’t see the donation limits in this context as a serious challenge to free speech. A long history of banning corporate and union money from being used directly for electioneering has existed in this country and while the corporate bodies can’t donate money in such a way, the individual members of such organizations may and do contribute to electioneering. Individually, it’s a wide open world as long as you don’t coordinate.

McCain-Feingold’s biggest improvement in the system (if it wasn’t eviscerated) would have been to force full disclosure of electioneering dollars for mass media. Those dollars are directly tied to the idea of influence over office seekers and the limits are far more modest than most people think.

Second, regulating the broadcast media is far different from regulating campaigns. We do regulate the public airwaves quite a bit already, but we stay away from content and even require less than we used to. In the case of 527 expenditures naming federal candidates close to an election, we aren’t regulating what they can say at all, we are regulating how they raise the money and how they disclose that.

Third, I’m not buying that polling matters as much as many claim it does. In fact, I think most people are quite good at tuning them out. While I’ll discuss that more later, I think the basic issue with polling is that people tend to dismiss anything they don’t understand as being wrong because they want it to be and in fact, much of the political psychology literature indicates people discount information that doesn’t support what they already believe and seek out information that confirms their positions.

We should all recognize that tendency since most of us (and me included) are guilty of such.

The Best of Alan Keyes

It’s hard to believe Alan’s time in Illinois is almost half-way done, but here are the top ten events for Alan Keyes’ first month and one-half.

10. Jim Edgar is left Speechless when he learns Thompson isn’t supporting Keyes

9. The Economist chimes in on the Keyes selection in a biting editorial

The Illinois Republicans are not just guilty of tokenism. They are guilty of last-minute scraping-the-bottom-of-the-barrel tokenism. The local party has been undergoing a sort of collective mental breakdown ever since Jack Ryan’s Senate candidacy collapsed in June over a sordid sex scandal.

8. Okay, 8 didn’t really happen during the campaign, but this makes me giggle:

7. Denny Hastert, the first of many, offers up an alibi as to how Keyes was chosen.

6. Keyes indicates fully automatic weapons are legal and claims support for his claim to this day, even though in Illinois they are not in the State of Illinois.

5. GOP Political Operative Mike Murphy reflects on the Alan Keyes candidacy and then responds to his critics

4. State Senator Dave Syverson responds to General JC Christian’s suggestion that to get out Keyes out of the race, Syverson and Rauschenberger stage a three-way with Keyes at Wrigley Field.

3. In an interview discussing homosexuality, Keyes says that by definition, Mary Cheney is a selfish-hedonist

2. Keyes Launches into Walter Jacobson during a morning interview. Keyes creates actual sympathy for Walter, something long unheard of in Chicago.

1. Keyes Declares There is a Smelly Toad in the Room

There’s much, much more if you follow this link

Keyes Campaign Goes AMWAY

The Minuteman Program just announced is a pyramid scheme of electoral politics.

You’ll have had to have had a lot of the kool aid to be aiming for these prizes:

In addition to the Keyes’ 04 Minuteman lapel pins, other perks will be assigned to each rank. Some of the currently established perks are listed below.

Sergeant = Keyes ’04 Soundtrack CD (Includes songs from the announcement and assorted speeches)

Colonel = A chance to get an in-studio seat for one of the upcoming debates

General = Time with Alan on the bus during a statewide swing

Other perks are in the works and will be announced shortly.

Songs from the announcement? Uh-huh. Any more Friend of Dorothy moments on there–I mean, we don’t want the Keyes campaign to be thought of as effeminate do we?

From the Inbox

Quickly becoming one of my and others favorite posters over at the Illinois Reader is DJRluth

“But look at this and tell me – is the guy running to be senator, or General Secretary of the Central Committee?”

“…By the very definition, Amb. Keyes is the opposite of a “carpetbagger.” Amb. Keyes was recruited and called for a transcendent mission of righteousness, victory and renewal in Illinois and beyond.

“The Amb. Keyes is performing his duty and deserves to be senator and deserves our loyalty and honor.”

Dear Leader indeed.

Most interesting–DJRluth posts from a Missouri IP for K-12 education.