One Ramrod Straight Reformer

In 2010, President Obama rebuked the Supreme Court to its face for the super-PAC-unleashing Citizens United decision. This week, he announced his super-PAC would be passing the hat among the tycoons just like Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich. Robert Scheer reminds us that this is Obama's second self-serving about-face on campaign finance and that at least one reform advocate has actually walked the talk -- and he's a Republican:

John McCain..."disarmed" by accepting public funding in the last election. Obama subverted what remained of political campaign finance reform by turning instead to private contributions, with the result that major Wall Street interests greatly financed his victory. It is not entirely true that shunning the PACs would have left the president at a disadvantage, since he commands predominant media space by virtue of his office. He could have exploited the fat-cat contributions to Republicans as confirmation that they are servants of the 1 percent that has caused the rest of us so much misery. Once again he has failed to take that case for economic justice to the American people and instead validated the Republican assault on what remains of our democracy.

McCain: "I'm Ashamed Of The Supreme Court"

As cosponsor of 2002's McCain-Feingold legislation, John McCain (shown here meeting President Nixon on his 1973 return from a Hanoi POW camp) has impeccable campaign finance reform credentials. He's never liked the Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United, and as a supporter of Mitt Romney, he likes it even less. Previously pro-CU Republicans who are outraged at free-spending super-PACs because of the chaos they've caused in primary season will probably fall in love with them again when the GOP nominee goes up against Barack Obama's $1 billion in the general election. McCain's anger has the virtue of consistency and integrity:

"Now we have a casino owner and his wife," said McCain on Sunday, putting "$10 million into the race" to keep Gingrich's candidacy alive. Sheldon Adelson, the casino owner and Gingrich's friend, "makes a lot of his money out of Macau," McCain said, raising the specter of foreign money in American politics. Beyond his business success, Adelson is known for his right-wing views on Israeli politics, manifested through his strong support for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

"On both sides we have these incredible amounts of money and I guarantee you there will be a scandal," McCain continued. It was unclear, however, whether by "both sides" he meant Republicans and Democrats or Gingrich and Romney. Pro-Romney groups have spent twice as much as pro-Gingrich groups in Florida.

McCain made similar criticisms of the post-Citizens United landscape on Wednesday during a conference call to voice his support for Romney. "I think the outside super PACs and others is so disgraceful that I'm ashamed of the United States Supreme Court in their decision on United," McCain said.

Big Boys Don't Whine

When in power, Newt Gingrich did whatever was necessary to achieve his ambitions. In 1988 he spearheaded ethics charges against House Speaker Jim Wright, who'd made a questionable book deal, as Gingrich did, twice. After ending Wright's career, he pivoted right, criticizing his own caucus leader, longtime GOP leader Bob Michel, for being too cozy with Democrats, contributing to Michel's decision to retire. That meant Gingrich, not Michel, would be speaker after the GOP took back the House in 1994.

Which is why a Facebook friend mentioned karma in a Gingrich-related post today. In Iowa, Mitt Romney has used all legal means to blunt Gingrich's December surge. His super-PAC has, according to Gingrich, spent $3.5 million on sinister-looking ads about his 747-full of baggage, including, ironically enough, the book deal he made as speaker.

That's not the only irony. When the Supreme Court authorized unlimited super-PAC spending in its January 2010 Citizens United vs. FEC decision, reformers were outraged. President Obama called out justices to their faces at the SOTU. But Gingrich took the opposite view. Patrick Caldwell writes:

Before the recent wave of attacks [by Romney, Gingrich] had expressly favored loosening campaign finance restrictions. "I actually think that the Citizens United case is one of the best examples of a genuine strategy that I've seen in the years that I've been in Washington," Gingrich said in a video celebrating the one-year anniversary of the decision. "It's really one of the most sophisticated, methodical and serious strategies I've seen in my years looking at government. I think Dave [ Bossie, director of Citizens United] believed passionately that the heart of American liberty is the right of every citizen—whether you agree or disagree—to get up and be heard."

That's exactly what those running and funding Romney's super-PAC are doing -- getting up in Gingrich's face and being heard. Everybody knows Romney's people are calling the shots. Everybody knows that the beauty of the anti-Gingrich ads is that Romney's campaign didn't have to pay for them nor be explicitly associated with them. That's the whole idea of super-PACs. It's why reformers didn't like Citizens United and Gingrich did.

Ruthlessly and cunningly, Romney used the system as he found it to tear down an opponent, just as Gingrich did to get power. The former speaker's been complaining all weekend. Big boys don't whine.

Bash Lazy Politicians, Not Unions

Stanley Kutler on the move against public employee unions, in his state of Wisconsin and elsewhere:

Whether in polite country club conversation or in the angry voices of barroom exchanges, we have an atavistic, ugly strain of hostility toward public workers, and even the idea of unions, that arouses some of our most divisive political dialogue. U.S. House Republicans, by way of example, have proposed legislation that would deny food stamps to the children or relatives of any worker who strikes. Real budget hawks, those people.

Yet where and when have any candidates for public office declared and advocated such hostility and promised to destroy unions? Neither Wisconsin's Gov. Scott Walker nor his dutiful followers in the Legislature ever, ever openly called for the actions they are now taking. Theirs was a stealth campaign, one of calculated deceit.

Kutler chalks it up to people's anger at teachers and teacher unions. He's right that there's plenty of that. But it's also Republicans wanting to hobble unions' ability to influence elections with campaign contributions. Will legislators who don't get union support be tougher during contract negotiations? Probably. But it's not all the unions' fault that lazy politicians of both parties negotiating at the local and state levels over the last 30 years or more made imprudent bargains that failed to take into account the possibility of an extended revenue drought such as the one we're experiencing now.

All in all, it's pretty ironic that the same sorts of folks who welcomed the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, which amply protected corporate free speech, are now using raw state power to gag workers. On this issue, give me stand-up, East coast Republicans like Gov. Chris Christie and Donald Trump who refuse to bash unions but know how to protect themselves and their stakeholders at the bargaining table.