Democratic SuperPACs and the dark future of campaign finance.

Politico posted an article late last night detailing efforts by the two seniormost democrats in each legislative chamber to raise money for left-leaning 'SuperPACs", and this morning prompted a discussion in its daily "Arena" feature, debating whether or not it is "hypocritical for [democrats to use] the (legal) fundraising tactics they recently shunned." I tend towards agreement with the general consensus that seems to be emerging over at Politico, that the democrats have to win elections before they can reasonably expect to change the rules, but much more cautiously and begrudgingly than most, for reasons outlined below.

It is very easy to decry the outsized role of money in the American political system when that money is being funneled primarily towards one's opponents. Indeed, it should come as no surprise that campaign finance reform has generally been pushed by democrats, when one considers how regularly they are outspent by their republican counterparts who court massive contributions from wealthy-business interests. Once that tide begins to shift, however, the need for changes becomes less and less pronounced. As long as the "right team" continues to win elections and solve those problems, the actual deleterious effect of money on the system (the motivator for reform) begins to recede from the view of those who previously felt unfairly underrepresented. Additionally, there are always other, more pressing issues at hand to be resolved; political capital being finite, legislators will prioritize solving these issues they predict will define the next election, rather than risk failing to move on these issues by instead focusing on reforms that, even absent any political failures, could jeopardize their incumbency advantages for re-election.

One needs to look no further than the Obama campaign and subsequent administration to see this in action. After abandoning public funding in the general election, the President has given given only perfunctory support to substantial reform, and is now courting traditional big-money donors (even from among the "fat cats" of Wall Street). It's very easy to cite this as an example of "power corrupts," and leave it at that before moving on the next false messiah (and in the specific case of President Obama, I might be inclined to agree). Without developing a more specific and nuanced understanding of how that corruption actually occurs, though, proponents of real campaign finance reform can never develop a meaningful political strategy for preventing it from occurring in the next cycle.