Letters from Linden
by Jack Linden
This is now obvious – the amount of money that is being and will be spent in the coming election borders on the obscene. But what is even more disgusting is that we – the little people – are not going to have a real say in the upcoming election. Too much hidden money is coming from big contributors to negate anything we do.
A very important Supreme Court decision, known as Citizens United, holds that corporations are people and the limitations on individual donations to campaigns are against the Constitution. How big was the impact of this decision? One example – Newt Gingrich was able to stay in the Republican primary campaign solely on the contribution of two people in Las Vegas, Nevada. Do you really think the people who funded that campaign would not want something in return had he become President of the United States?
The contributions of individuals and political action committees have now become a dilemma for the local “tea parties”. The various PACs have decided who needs to be elected and is feeding the candidates’ campaign committees money or have taken our ads in support of the PACs candidates.
This problem became all too apparent in the recent recall election in Wisconsin. The governor there, facing a recall, outspent his opponent by seven or eight to one depending on what statistic one cites. Of that amount, 62% came from out of the state. Most of the money came from PACs that are described as favoring “tea party” candidates.
Here in Texas our illustrious governor has informed those same PACs that they need to stay out of Texas. The problem is simple – the governor backs one person for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by the reitrement of Kay Bailey Hutchinson, while the “tea party” nationwide backs another candidate. Even while the governor, our failed candidate for the presidency, has stated that he was a member of the “tea party” before there was a tea party, he is at odds with the national groups that say they are the “tea party.” Now he in essence is telling the outside groups that they should keep their money out of Texas. “We Texans know who is the best candidate and we don’t need any outside help, thank you very much.”
The Texas tea party and the conflict that it now has with the governor is merely one example of what is going to happen nationwide. Those who head the political action committees will want to support one candidate while the tea party will back another. This will cause internal dissention within the various tea parties.
The true fact is that the tea parties who claimed that they were grass roots organizations have begun to lose their power. If they continue to take money from the well-funded PACs, they lose the grass roots label.
Tea parties brought this problem on their own organizations by accepting money from such organizations as Freedom Works, the Heritage Foundation and the PACs controlled by Karl Rove. As a result, they lost the power of the purse.
What do the parties really want? They can have access to enormous amounts of money if they agree on the candidate that the PAC wants or they can choose their own candidate and possibly come into conflict with another candidate chosen by the PAC.
For the common person, the old adage of being between a rock and a hard place is exactly where the tea parties are. They wanted the Citizens United decision. Now they have to live with the “big political committee” rather than the big government that they oppose.
