I have no problem with people from different areas contributing to campaigns. After all, we're all allowed to do it. If I see a good progressive congressman, for example, having to fight a Republican who has mega-corporate PAC money behind him, I try to contribute to that good progressive Democrat.
It's most definitely in my interest to have that progressive Democrat in Congress. That most certainly will directly affect me and my life, as it will yours. Look at what the turn of the House of Representatives did in 2010, with the House becoming majority Republican. Utter disaster, and it affects all of us. It's not just the person in that district.
And sadly, thanks to Citizens United, we DO have foreign money financing Republican campaigns. Hell, even John McCain called out his fellow Republicans on it:
John McCain Accuses Republicans of Using Foreign Money Against Obama:
JUDY WOODRUFF: But in the wake of the Supreme Court decision Citizens United, we are seeing enormous sums of money going into this campaign, to the campaigns themselves, to outside supporters. Is this — is it just inevitable that we’re now in a period where money is going to be playing this dominant role in American politics?
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN: I’m afraid, at least for the time being, that’s going to be the case, because of the most misguided, naive, uninformed, egregious decision of the United States Supreme Court I think in the 21st century.
To somehow view money as not having an effect on election, a corrupting effect on election, flies in the face of reality. I just wish one of them had run for county sheriff. So what we are. . .
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN: Mr. Adelson, who gave large amounts of money to the Gingrich campaign. And much of Mr. Adelson’s casino profits that go to him come from this casino in Macau.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Which says what?
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN: Which says that, obviously, maybe in a roundabout way, foreign money is coming into an American campaign — political campaigns.
Romney's biggest donor,
Sheldon Adelson, has pledged to give endless amounts of money to see him elected. Here's more on him:
Sheldon Adelson, the CEO of the Las Vegas Sands Corporation and one of the wealthiest men in the world, is an important financial backer of right-wing “pro-Israel” groups in the United States and elsewhere in the world, as well as a prominent supporter of key Israeli Likud Party figures.
Adelson received widespread public attention during the 2012 U.S. presidential race because of his massive donations to groups backing the campaigns of Newt Gingrich and later Mitt Romney, as well as to the Karl Rove-backed Crossroads GPS and PACs linked to the billionaires Charles and David Koch and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.).[1] The New York Times estimated in June 2012 that all told, Adelson and his spouse had already donated $60 million during the 2012 election cycle.[2]Sheldon
Adelson’s political donations have generated ire across the political spectrum. Even Sen. John McCain, a Romney surrogate, criticized Adelson’s campaign cash, arguing during a June 2012 PBS interview: “Much of Mr. Adelson's casino profits that go to him come from his casino in Macau, which says that obviously, maybe in a roundabout way foreign money is coming into an American political campaign. That is a great deal of money, and we need a level playing field and we need to go back to the realization ... that we have to have a limit on the flow of money and corporations are not people.”[3]
Best reading is probably here -- People for the American Way wrote an outstanding report on
Citizens Blindsided: Secret Corporate Money in the 2010 Elections and America’s New Shadow Democracy
http://www.pfaw.org/media-center/publications/citizens-blindsided-secret-corporate-money-2010-elections-and-america-s-ne
Citizens United and related judicial and administrative decisions have also allowed for the emergence of so-called Super PACs, which can take in unlimited amounts of money from corporations and individuals. A number of the new political organizations have been exposed as front groups for the oil and gas and insurance industries and Wall Street moguls, and new revelations reveal that some groups even receive substantial funding from federal government contractors and foreign businesses. Corporate dollars are also financing many Tea Party and other conservative “grassroots” organizations, giving “astroturfing” an even more prominent role in American politics.
The vast majority of corporate (and foreign) money is going to the Republicans. Democrats who dig into their measly checking accounts to donate $5 even $500 to a Democrat in another state are not the problem, believe me. It's Citizens United that MUST be overturned and corporate money that has to be heavily regulated when it comes to their ability to influence elections!
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