March 15, 2006
THE PRESS VS. THE FIRST:
The Internet Campaign Loophole (NY Times, 3/15/06)
For all the avowals to put the brakes on ethical lapses, the House is showing its true colors with an attempt to turn the Internet into a free-flowing big-money trough for uncontrolled political spending. The measure would exempt political ads on the Internet from a reform law barring corporate and union donors from buying up grateful candidates with six- and seven-figure contributions.Politicians who chafe under the law's "soft money" ban would be free to run unlimited ads online, empowered by private donors who would not even be required to file campaign records. A similar loophole attempted by the Federal Election Commission has already been struck down in court for inviting "rampant circumvention" of the anticorruption law.
The House bill pretends to be trying to protect the free speech rights of bloggers on the Internet.
So make them file. Posted by Orrin Judd at March 15, 2006 10:17 AM
What should we have expected from the MSM? Without bloggers, they would be free to fix elections by uttering forged documents.
Posted by: Lou Gots at March 15, 2006 4:33 PMThe FEC excluded blogs from McCain/Feingold but a judge overruled it, ruling that Congress did not allow for such an exemption.
Any blog that spends more than $x per year to run their site is potentially covered. (I forget exactly what $x was but it was fairly small.)
Posted by: Gideon at March 15, 2006 5:17 PMCan you say "Kos", Mr. Sulzberger? How about "MoveOn.org? I knew you could.
Posted by: Mikey at March 15, 2006 7:59 PMWhile political ads on the internet might someday be a big deal, right now the internet is primarily useful for raising money from True Believers™
Currently, television is a thousand times more effective than the internet, at least for political ads.
Even billboards are more effective for now.
Posted by: Noam Chomsky at March 16, 2006 12:05 AMOur ten year old neighbor kid knows all the words from the first Jib-Jab song.
Posted by: oj at March 16, 2006 12:11 AMAnd I know someone who used to suffer from multiple personalities.
Neither she nor the neighbor kid represent any great fraction of the voting public.
As you often write, political junkies congregating on the 'net only affect things at the margins.
So, yeah, if going down to the wire it's 50/50, then internet political ads could conceivably give a candidate the "+1" that she needs to triumph - but they won't swing even 1% of the vote.
Posted by: Noam Chomsky at March 16, 2006 7:16 AMPeople don't, but more importantly won't, get political information from their television.
Posted by: oj at March 16, 2006 8:01 AMwhere do they get it then ?
Posted by: tow at March 18, 2006 10:32 PM