Republicans and outside groups used anonymous Twitter accounts to share internal polling data ahead of the midterm elections, CNN has learned, a practice that raises questions about whether they violated campaign finance laws that prohibit coordination. The Twitter accounts were hidden in plain sight. The profiles were publicly available but […] Read more »
Voters Ready to Act against Big Money in Politics
The 2014 midterm election demonstrated voters’ dissatisfaction with the current state of campaigns and campaign spending. More and more money is being spent each cycle, voters feel bombarded by advertisements from opaque outside groups, and they have no doubt that Congress is bought and sold by special interests and campaign […] Read more »
Why Bad Polls Are Good for Business
… At-risk Democrats are trying to tell two different stories to two separate audiences this cycle. Call it playing an outside and inside game—galvanizing the base while assuring the press that everything’s under control. Along with panic-stricken emails about negative polls, voters’ email boxes have been cluttered with ominous warnings […] Read more »
Who Needs a Smoke-Filled Room?
Tax-exempt “social welfare” organizations, the new political weapons of choice, are widening the gap between the rich people who control campaign financing and the economically anxious voters targeted by their ads. … At the current rate of growth, the Center for Responsive Politics projects that spending in the current election […] Read more »
Tipping point for campaign finance
… While the rich have always had a good deal of political power, the continuing effort to gut our campaign finance laws threatens to degrade our democracy beyond recognition. Money properly talks in markets, but when it is given free rein in politics, it threatens the core principle of one […] Read more »
New Voter Guide Follows the Money
… One problem with voter guides, despite their worthy intentions and the seriousness of their approach, is that there is rarely a common baseline from which to evaluate two or more candidates. A 30-year incumbent’s record usually dwarfs that of a first-time challenger who has never held office. But those […] Read more »