One of the oldest adages for anyone studying politics and government is Follow the Money.<\/p>\n
If you know who’s paying for a candidate’s campaign ads, or a political movement’s rallies, you have a much clearer sense for what they’re about and whose interests they’re likely to watch out for.<\/p>\n
And for years, there was a kind of national consensus around this idea:<\/p>\n
We might disagree about the impact of all the cash washing around in American politics; but surely we can agree that disclosure of the sources of that money should be a basic requirement.\u00a0 Right?<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, like so many other reasonable ideas in our political culture, this too is being abandoned.<\/p>\n
This year, secretive groups not officially tied to either party or their candidates have spent more than $200 million on campaign ads and other forms of activism.\u00a0 That’s up from $68 million four years ago.<\/p>\n
This from Capital News Connection, a public radio project.<\/a><\/p>\n The spending explosion, most observers agree, stems from recent federal court rulings, especially Citizens United vs. the Federal Election Commission, decided earlier this year.<\/p>\n The Supreme Court declared corporations, unions and other special interests could spend unlimited amounts from their treasuries to try to influence campaigns, so long as the money doesn\u2019t go directly to candidates.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Journalists have been working aggressively to try to figure out where all that money is coming from and where it’s going, but it’s not easy.<\/p>\n A lot of the cash is being funneled through non-profit groups that aren’t required to name their donors.\u00a0 Here’s CNC’s list of some of the biggest, and most secretive, spenders in this year’s campaign:<\/p>\n The U.S. Chamber of Commerce ($24.34 million), the Service Employees International Union ($14.42 million), the conservative American Action Network ($16.95 million), the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees ($9.86 million), the conservative American Future Fund ($8.59 million) and the conservative Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies ($10.48 million). The later was founded by former Bush political adviser Karl Rove.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n As you can see, it’s a non-partisan list:\u00a0 There are secretive donors funneling money to Democrats and Republicans.<\/p>\n But by all accounts the vast majority of the anonymous-donor dough is going to the GOP, helping to build the big Republican wave of 2010.<\/p>\n One of the reasons these secret donations are dangerous is that they can skew our understanding of how much support a particular cause or candidate has.<\/p>\n Karl Rove’s new group calls itself “grassroots,” and has largely eclipsed the Republican National Committee in funding TV spots and get out the votes efforts across the country.<\/p>\n