“Mitt Romney said today that he learned something. There are things that money can’t buy — like Colorado, Minnesota, Missouri.” – Jay Leno
“The Romney campaign responded, saying that it plans to win in the long-run because it has more money that Santorum’s campaign.” – The Christian Post
There you have it, folks. The elections today in America boil down to one thing: Who has the most money. If that’s the case, Mitt Romney will be your next president. Do you like Mitt Romney? Doesn’t matter. Is Mitt Romney the most qualified person in America to be your next president? Doesn’t matter. Is Romney a true conservative? Doesn’t matter. Will Mitt Romney support women’s rights, higher education or protect our environment? It doesn’t matter.
What matters is that Mitt Romney is rich; not just rich, but really rich, at least by Vermont standards. I guess today being worth only $250 million does not qualify you as being really rich since we have quite a few billionaires out there. And what are some of these billionaires doing? They are giving tens of millions to Republican PACs in support of their rich candidate.
The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) is convened for the purpose of endorsing a candidate in the Republican presidential primary. All of the men left in this race are pretty conservative, but the one who appears to be the least conservative, or at least in the past has been the least conservative, is Mitt Romney. Romney, however, is expected to receive the CPAC endorsement, not because he’s the most conservative, but because he has the most money and, according to the Romney campaign, they will win in the long run, because they have more money.
Will conservatives abandon their core principles and support Mitt Romney simply because they think he can win? Apparently. Wouldn’t it make more sense for this group to support Rick Santorum? He has been a conservative from the start. Newt Gingrich is kind of conservative, I guess, but spending billions to colonize the moon seems like a budget buster of an idea, and, well, slightly nuts.
Ron Paul’s pretty darned conservative. He wants us to go back to the days when we all had some gold hidden away under floorboards in a treasure chest and Darwin’s theory of survival of the fittest was more evenly applied. He would abolish the income tax, the Federal Reserve and pretty much most of government. We’d be fending for ourselves. It would seem that this would be the most conservative approach to governing our land, yet I don’t see him getting this endorsement.
However, the Republicans (and probably the rest of America) don’t seem to trust Romney. Is it because he passed health care legislation in Massachusetts nearly identical to Obama’s health care plan or is it because he was governor of Massachusetts when the courts upheld gay marriage and he did nothing to overturn that law? The core principles of the old Mitt Romney are not those of the Mitt Romney who is about to be endorsed by CPAC and that’s what has a lot Republicans nervous. They can apparently forgive him for tying his terrified dog on the roof of his car and driving to Canada, but will they overlook the man who he used to be for the man he is today? Maybe they remember how affective the flip-flop campaign was against John Kerry and fear it will now be used against them.
“The fundraising gold rush by super PACs on both sides has been spurred by court rulings in early 2010 that overturned decades of campaign finance law and opened the floodgates to corporations, individuals and unions writing unlimited checks to pay for ads by outside groups that directly support or oppose candidates.
“The new joint effort, fundraisers stress, is expected to be contingent on pulling together a group of super donors who collectively would pony up between $40 million and $100 million. Fundraisers note that it’s important to potential big individual donors that if they write checks in the $5 million range, their contributions would be matched by several others.” – Kansas City Star.
The sad truth is that thanks to our Supreme Court our presidency is for sale. In the next election we will watch a rich candidate bought by a few very rich people. That is unless you stand up and declare that the presidency of the United States of America is not for sale.
We get the democracy that we work for. Town Meeting is coming up. Go to it. Get involved. Participate in our democracy, because believe me there are those out there with a ton of money who understand how important it. We’re seeing it happen here in Vermont with well-financed groups run by rich people. Follow the money, if you can, to see who’s behind the effort.
In an attempt to fight back I have founded Vermont’s first Super PAC – Americans for a Better Tomorrow Today; http://www.occupy2012pac.org. It’s a people’s action committee vs. a political action committee. Instead of one donor giving $5 million we’re looking for a million people to give $5. That’s the Vermont way.
