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Mayday PAC Goes 2 For 8
An anonymous reader writes: Lawrence Lessig's Mayday.us project had a bold goal: create a super PAC to end all super PACs. It generated significant support and raised over $10 million, which it spent endorsing a group of candidates for the recent mid-term elections and the primaries beforehand. The results weren't kind. Only two of the eight candidates backed by Mayday won their elections, and both of those candidates were quite likely to win anyway. Lessig was understandably displeased with the results. In a post on the Mayday site, he said, "What 2014 shows most clearly is the power of partisanship in our elections. Whatever else voters wanted, they wanted first their team to win."
Kenneth Vogel, author of Big Money, a recent book on the rise of super PACs, was critical of of Mayday's efforts, saying, "While voters do express high levels of disgust about the state of campaign finance and the level of corruption in Washington, they tend to actually cast votes more on bread-and-butter economic issues." Still, Lessig is hopeful for the future: "We moved voters on the basis of that message. Not enough. Not cheaply enough. But they moved."
Kenneth Vogel, author of Big Money, a recent book on the rise of super PACs, was critical of of Mayday's efforts, saying, "While voters do express high levels of disgust about the state of campaign finance and the level of corruption in Washington, they tend to actually cast votes more on bread-and-butter economic issues." Still, Lessig is hopeful for the future: "We moved voters on the basis of that message. Not enough. Not cheaply enough. But they moved."
The results weren't kind. Only two of the eight candidates backed by Mayday won their elections, and both of those candidates were quite likely to win anyway. "Whatever else voters wanted, they wanted first their team to win."
Well, duh! Most people don't want to switch because that would mean they were wrong before.
"We moved voters on the basis of that message. Not enough. Not cheaply enough. But they moved."
Not really ...
Until you get proportional representation (which actually gives 3rd parties a chance) it's going to be "Partisanship For The Win!"
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
The government is just another business, and people will want to buy pieces of it.
You can't put a band-aid over an asshole to stop the spread of shit. It's a problem inherent to the system.
There were plenty of SuperPACs that raised more than that for individual races this election cycle, and these were midterm elections. In 2016 $10M will be chump change for election fundraising.
If Citizens United sought to disenfranchise voters as much as possible from the election process, they will accomplish it once that election is over and voters feel that their money can no longer help out in any meaningful way.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
I think the biggest thing Mayday PAC did wrong is that they were, in the end, massive hypocrites.
Their "competition" for the best video about the effect of big money was such an enormous debacle and a clear showing that their true goal was not to get money out of politics, but to get Conservative (and even libertarian) money out of politics. Their embracing and providing cover for Tom Steyer, who openly talked about influencing elections with large amounts of his money, makes Mayday PAC a bunch of liars.
http://freebeacon.com/politics...
If Mayday were true to its stated vision, they would have condemned Steyer's actions. That they did not condemn him like they constantly did the Koch brothers proves that they don't really want what they say they want.
On top of this, their support for a constitutional amendment that would allow congress to restrict speech, makes them a contemptable organization.
I really respect Lessig's views on copyrights and patents. His efforts with his Mayday PAC have made me lose great amounts of respect for him.
Most people - about 80% by some estimates - have a fairly clear idea of what they believe, and that belief corresponds roughly to either the Democrat or Republican party. They vote according to their belief, not "Yay my team". Lessig's view is far too shallow, and in all likelihood he's blind to his own bias.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
What 2014 shows most clearly is the power of partisanship in our elections. Whatever else voters wanted, they wanted first their team to win.
Maybe they showed that. Or maybe they showed that the voters don't want to put Lawrence Lessig in charge of determining who gets free speech and who does not. Maybe the voters think that individuals shouldn't lose their right to express their support for a candidate financially just because they're acting in a group. Maybe the voters think that the voters should be exposed to more information on a candidate than just what the news shows them, because the news goes out of its way to favor certain candidates and certain policies. Maybe the voters think that campaign finance laws invariably turn into incumbent protection schemes, and they think there's a lot of crappy incumbents. In short, maybe the voters rejected Lessig's idea because they think it's a bad idea.
Also, this was a wave election for Republicans. I wouldn't expect anyone using Communist imagery (and who launched on a Communist holiday*) to do well in this environment.
*If a leftist wants to convince me that his organization, which is named after a website URL and so can't contain a space, should be interpreted as "Mayday" rather than "May Day," there are 364 better days to launch the organization on than May 1st. You'll note Wolf PAC doesn't have this problem.
Yeah, partisanship has some to do with it. But the biggest problem that Mayday.us faces is apathy and the fact that nationally 62 percent of those legally eligible to vote did not do so.
If you are American and you voted Tuesday, regardless of who you voted for, good for you! But if you did not vote and you were legally entitled to do so, go look in the mirror and you'll see why American government is as fucked up as it is. When 62 percent of eligible voters do not do so, America gets the government it deserves. And don't give me that "My not voting is a protest!" bullshit. All you do by not voting is magnify the voting power of the far right, which is the group most likely to go vote in American elections, and is the very group that is most likely to support the leaders you do not like.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
What they want to do is choke out conservative money, because that's the primary way Republicans get heard when leftists control the culture.
Mayday PAC is transparent in this regard- they ran a video contest accepting amateur-made ads supporting their cause. A video attacking Tom Steyer, the left's Koch, won the popular vote by a large margin. They picked another video based on the 'judgement of their panel of experts.'
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
If Ted Cruze is saying the opposite of what you want done, then I'll start listening to him.
The supreme court did not rip the first amendment at all. It simply said that some forms of speech costs money and that people can pool together in order to afford that costs. It said that people who have already pooled together for other reasons can spend their resources on speech too.
Stopping that from happening is in fact denying free speech to those people in the same way you think it is bad. When people cannot pool their resources together to speak about their candidate or against another candidate, they have lost their ability to make speech that has any impact. This has nothing to do with corporate donations- when you tell people or corporations which are run by people and owned by people, that they can have all the free speech they want except when you do not agree with it or the way they are speaking- you have ripped the first amendment yourself.
He is working hard to earn that money if he is thinking about leaving it as a legacy for his children to enjoy that should be his choice. What difference does it matter if its $5 or $5 million, or hell $5 billion.