Sheldon G Adelson. George Soros. The Koch Brothers. These are a few of the people who have invested money in the 2012 election by way of Political Action Committees. To find out more about the money I searched the Federal Election Commission data base at http://www.fec.gov. What I found was that together they have donate between 45 and 85 million dollars to PACs for this election. What I could not find out is what the money was being used for.
It was only after reading about the company Campaigns Inc. that I knew what the money was going to be use for. Campaigns Inc., was the first political consulting company formed in 1933 in California and is much like today’s Political Action Committees. PACs follow the same campaign principles that Campaigns Inc. created in 1933. The campaign principals include; 1) create an opponent, 2) attack their character, 3) put on a show, 4) have a simple campaign message, 5) don’t explain your position, and 5) repeat. These 5 steps are exactly what a PAC can do. The only thing that is illegal for a PAC to do is coordinate their campaigns with the candidate. Which you don’t need to do when you are only attacking your opponent.
Political Action Committees have been legal for 10 years. Before 2002 there were limits on the amount a person could invest into a political campaign. With 2002 Campaign Finance Reform Law one person is now able to spend as much as they want on an election. Political Action Committees have not changed how the elections are played but they have invited a lot more people into the game.
With more money spent on elections will the electorate become more engaged in government and elections?
Michael Bloomberg is worth 25 Billion, should he be able to spend it all on running for President?
Strategically Communicating 
Another troubling fact of the power and influence of these Super PACs is the extent to which the flood of their advertising dollars might have an adverse effect on the ability of news outlets (which are ultimately beholden to their profit-seeking media conglomerate owners) to objectively report this issue as the implications of such unfettered private influence becomes more widely discussed and debated in the public discourse.
Consider this report from AlterNet:
“The unadvertised victors are media businesses that are seeing political advertising profits reach into the billions.”
“Based on the new environment of virtually unlimited political advertising, we have long expected that political ad sales would set records in 2012,” Moody’s said. “This year the surge in political spending could translate to as much as $2.8 billion in ad revenue for local broadcast and cable television—more than half of the estimated $5 billion total outlay on 2012 political advertising in all media, in line with our initial high-case forecast for a 19% to 27% increase for the broadcasters.”
http://www.alternet.org/election-2012/advertising-television-rockets-super-pacs-pour-dough-total-spending-5-billion
By: coolethan77 on October 29, 2012
at 6:08 pm