Russ Feingold: Democrats Sold Out in 2012 and Need to Quit Big Money
President Obama's decision to let his 2013 inauguration committee accept corporate cash and million-dollar donations marks quite a reversal for the president: for his first inaugural in 2009, he capped individual donations at $50,000 and banned corporate money. The Associated Press calls the decision "part of a continuing erosion of Obama's pledge to keep donors and special interests at arm's length of his presidency." But for former Sen. Russ Feingold, it's yet another sell-out by his friends in the Democratic Party to the big-money forces so dominant in politics today.
No Democrat has so publicly ripped his own party for embracing super-PACs and dark-money nonprofits than Feingold. In a new article for the journal Democracy, Feingold, who co-wrote the 2002 McCain-Feingold Act, the last major campaign finance restriction in the US, takes Democrats to the mat. He calls 2012 "a big step" back for Democratic-led efforts to get big money out of politics, and singles out Obama's reversal on super-PACs. In February 2012, the president encouraged his donors to give to Priorities USA Action, the super-PAC backing him, while allowing his top deputies to appear at Priorities events. On the PBS NewsHour, top Obama strategist David Axelrod defended Obama by saying that the president hadn't warned at all toward super-PACs but had to play by the rules of the game. You heard that a lot from Democrats in 2012. Yet with statements like that, Feingold says, Democrats were posing as a pro-reform party while tripping over themselves to "exploit any avenue to accept unlimited, corporate dollars to fund elections."
Beltway Democrats, Feingold argues, aren't going to reform big-money politics from the inside; they're addicted and they just can't quit. The task of fighting for real reforms to money in politics, of building what Feingold—who now runs his own pro-reform nonprofit, Progressives United—calls a "permanent majority" for reform, falls instead to liberal donors and activists outside of Washington.
Feingold says the most important thing big donors can do is stop giving—to super-PACs or any of the other Citizens United-enabled fixtures of our big-money politics. "Donors hold more leverage to create a movement for reform than almost any other actor in the political system," he says. If donors ignore super-PACs and nonprofits, "Washington will notice." And as for the liberal activists out there, they should redirect all the energy they've invested into passing a constitutional amendment reversing the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision and channel it into "achievable goals"—public financing of elections, disclosure of donors to dark-money nonprofits and shell corporations, overhauling the dysfunctional Federal Election Commission, the nation's top elections cop.
The stakes are high, in Feingold's view, for the Democrats. "Unless Democrats embrace election reform as a central tenet of our platform," he writes, "we will face another era reminiscent of soft money—when the dominance of corporate interests meant that no matter what party held power, the influence of Big Money always won."
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/01/russ-feingold-obama-democrats-sold-out-super-pacs
= new reply since forum marked as read
Dukakis to be your senior campaign strategist. 
Last edited Fri Jan 11, 2013, 04:39 PM - Edit history (1)
punishing me by issuing threatening ultimatums about his vote, or lack thereof. I can promise you this, win or lose, the Democratic party will not be taken over by the left's version of the teabaggers. President Obama was reelected handily, despite all the constant carping from his left. Mainline Democrats have seen the shambles that today's Republican Party has become, trying to appease a minority of it's base. Romney did that, and couldn't make the pivot back to the center to attract Independents. Fortunately for us, your partner isn't the only one out there. 
People should read and understand it. It's not that difficult, but I guess it's still easier to just complain about Obama "selling out." 
republican, doncha know" ignorantly ad nauseum.
Imagine how efficient it could be without the corporate bribe money. I'm sure they don't expect anything in return for their bankrolling the event. 
another hideous Republican will gain office or at the very least will keep Democratic leadership from achieving their goals. Either way, the people are misled into thinking any alternative is worth a go. Try waiting around for the next economic crash b/c of, say, the college loan bubble? Who do you think the media and therefore the people are going to blame?
As for your ridiculous assertion at the end of your response, I guess you "got me". I can't love Jeb enough.
