Romney, Gingrich and a huge pile of corporate cash

This winter’s Republican primaries have provided observers with a roller coaster ride, which will reach a defining moment this Tuesday, when voters cast their ballots in the Florida primary.

If Gingrich can eek out a win, then he will move forward with some real momentum. If Romney wins then the insurgency will be effectively over.

So far, the contest has been characterised by extreme volatility in public opinion. There have been unprecedented 14 percentage point polling shifts in the course of a 24 hour cycle. If I had to put my money on any candidate right now it would be Romney, who has spent most of the last week with a big lead thanks to a massive institutional onslaught against Gingrich.

Part of the reason why Gingrich needs the Florida win so badly is that he is so utterly outgunned by the Romney operation, which, well-funded from the start, now counts on the support of the entire Republican establishment. Gingrich needs a game-changer to avoid the fate of being ground down the superior machine.

The money is key – anyone who has organised an election campaign can grasp how expensive it is to create an entire GOTV operation for millions of voters out of almost nothing within just a few weeks. Now imagine that repeated up to 20 times a month for three or four months.

But perhaps the most expensive thing which is hardest to grasp for people in the U.K. is the way paid political T.V. advertising can dominate the airwaves and how effective a constant drumbeat of negative messages about one’s opponent can be.

Since the Supreme Court’s F.E.C. vs Citizens United decision two years ago, spending by outside bodies has skyrocketed. The Center for Responsive Politics, reported that spending from a new legal entity, known as a super P.A.C. (political action committee) is already at almost $45 million ten months out from the election. Much of this outside expenditure originates from a small number of often anonymous donors.

The Supreme Court has effectively decided that corporations have the same free speech rights as people, which means that their advocacy for or against a candidate cannot be restricted in the run up to an election, as it previously was.

Not only does this make for excruciating viewing for the US  TV-watching public, it also further raises the barrier for participation in elections. If you are going for any kind of federal office, you now can only do so if you can find access to millions for either your campaign or supportive super P.A.C.s.

The outrage at this is real and the first steps of a very tough process to overturn this ruling, along with other steps to get big money out of politics, have been taken. Several Democrats in the House and Senate have published constitutional amendments to prohibit this kind of spending.

Getting an amendment passed will be a tough process. It would need to be passed by two thirds of each house of Congress or by a convention called by two thirds of states. It would then need to be ratified by three quarters of US states to pass. That feat hasn’t taken place since 1971, when the voting age was reduced to 18*.

But support for getting corporate money out of politics is strong. According to a recent poll carried out by Greenberg and Carville’s Democracy Corp for Public Campaign Action Fund, 81% of people believe that too much is being spent on campaigns and elections and that reasonable limits should be placed on it (full disclosure, I am a consultant for CWA, which works with Public Campaign and others on this issue). 60% of people link this excessive expenditure to the influence of big banks, corporate donors and lobbyists furthering their interests. 51% to 33% support a constitutional amendment.

The spectacle of the Gingrich vs Romney contest has been thoroughly entertaining for politicos. But the huge amount of money that has been spent gives us a preview of the huge amounts of corporate cash that will be thrown at the November elections. It makes it crystal clear that stopping the corporate money flow is one of the crucial ways that the U.S. political system needs to be fixed.

*If anyone can say why the last amendment, passed in 1991 was different without googling, please leave a comment.