1. Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself,” Poetry Foundation, http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174745 (accessed February 15, 2013).
2. From the review of Al Gore, The Future: Six Drivers of Global Change (New York: Random House, 2013), by Leonard Gill that appeared in the Memphis Flyer, February 14, 2013.
3. Quoted in Robert Gehrke, “Huntsman Bemoans a Broken U.S. Political System,” Salt Lake Tribune, May 31, 2012; and in Eric Dolan, “Huntsman Calls for Third Party: ‘The System Is Broken,’” Raw Story, February 23, 2012.
4. Quoted in Bill Barrow, “Jimmy Carter: Citizens United Ruling, ‘Financial Corruption’ Are Threatening Democracy,” Huffington Post, September 12, 2012.
5. Quoted in “Jimmy Carter: Money Ruining Elections,” Associated Press, September 12, 2012.
6. Martin Luther King Jr., Why We Can’t Wait (Boston: Beacon Press, 2011).
7. Barack Obama, “The 2013 State of the Union Address,” www.whitehouse.gov (accessed February 12, 2013).
1. Martin Luther King Jr., Where Do We Go from Here?: Chaos or Community? (Boston: Beacon Press, 2010).
2. Lawrence Lessig, “The Founders Versus the Funders,” The Progressive, October 2012, 21.
3. Alex Seitz-Wald, “Feingold: Even Worse Than We Expected,” http://www.salon.com/2012/09/22/even_worse_than_we_expected/, September 22, 2012. Accessed March 12, 2013.
4. Editorial, “Election Winners and Losers: Americans Voted in Large Numbers, but Voters Need to Be Better Served at the Polls. Meanwhile, Republicans Must Pause to Reflect,” Christian Science Monitor, November 9, 2012.
5. Nicholas Confessore, “Results Won’t Limit Campaign Money Any More Than Ruling Did,” New York Times, November 11, 2012.
6. Jillian Berman, “Most Americans Say Economic Structure Favors ‘Very Small Portion of the Rich’: WSJ/NBC Poll,” Huffington Post, November 8, 2011.
7. Jeffrey A. Winters, “Democracy and Oligarchy,” The American Interest, November/December 2011, 18.
8. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., “A Hostile Takeover of Our Country,” EcoWatch, October 29, 2012.
9. See Jane Mayer, “The Voter-Fraud Myth,” New Yorker, October 29, 2012.
10. Martin Luther King Jr., “Give Us the Ballot,” address at the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom, Washington, DC, May 17, 1957.
11. Quoted in Ron Hayduk, Democracy for All: Restoring Immigrant Voting Rights in the United States (New York: Routledge, 2006), 3.
1. A July 2012 Gallup Poll found the two top issues rated as “extremely important” by voters are creating good jobs and reducing corruption in the federal government. See Jeffrey M. Jones, “Americans Want Next President to Prioritize Jobs, Corruption,” gallup.com, July 30, 2012.
2. Rasmussen Reports, “59% Say Election Rules Rigged to Help Congressional Incumbents” (2012), and Rasmussen Reports, “53% Say Elections Are Rigged to Help Incumbents in Congress” (2011), http://www.rasmussenreports.com.
3. Quoted in Selah Hennessy, “Annan Commission Criticizes US Election Financing,” voanews.com, September 14, 2012.
4. Sources: Total vote 1948–2008: Voter Turnout, International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, http://idea.int/vt (accessed November 23, 2012). Total vote 2012: “Elections 2012,” New York Times (updated November 25, 2012), http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/results/president. Voting-age population 1948–2008: U.S. Census Bureau, “National Estimates by Age, Sex, Race: 1900–1979 (PE-11),” http://www.census.gov/popest/data/national/asrh/pre-1980/PE-11.html, and “Historical Data: 2000s,” http://www.census.gov/popest/data/historical/2000s/index.html. Voting-age population 2012: U.S. Census Bureau, “2008 National Population Projections: Table 1. Projected Population by Single Year of Age, Sex, Race, and Hispanic Origin for the United States: July 1, 2000 to July 1, 2050,” http://www.census.gov/population/projections/data/national/2008/downloadablefiles.html.
5. Our figures may be somewhat different from others because we include all Americans who are legal residents of the United States. Whether prisoners, ex-prisoners, and legal aliens are entitled to vote in elections is always a political decision, so all of these people belong in the denominator. “Voting-Age Population Turnout” is defined as the percentage of the “Voting-Age Population” (VAP) that actually voted. In this calculation, the VAP is defined as everyone legally residing in the United States, age eighteen and older, which is in accord with the U.S. Census Bureau. This figure includes prisoners and those on probation or parole regardless of whether they are eligible to vote in a given state. It also includes noncitizens, who constituted 8.6 percent of the population in 2010 according to the United States Elections Project, http://elections.gmu.edu/Turnout_2010G.html. However, according to the American Community Survey, the estimate of noncitizens in 2011 was only 4.7 percent. Sources: Total vote 2004 and 2008: International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA), Voter Turnout, http://www.idea.int. Total vote 2012: Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_elections,_2012. Total Population: U.S. Census Bureau, “Table 1 Intercensal Estimates of the Resident Population by Sex and Age for the United States.” (2004 and 2008) and “2008 National Projections.” (2012). We also consult and rely on the University of California at Santa Barbara’s American Presidency Project data, found at: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/data/turnout.php.
6. See the data of the International IDEA, www.idea.int. The twelve nations are Japan, Germany, France, United Kingdom, Brazil, Italy, India, Canada, Russia, Spain, Australia, and Canada.
7. Bridget Hunter, “2011 U.S. State, Local Elections Important Despite Low Turnout,” Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State, November 9, 2011.
8. Wendy R. Weiser and Lawrence Norden, “Voting Law Changes in 2012,” Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, October 3, 2011.
9. For an extended discussion of this issue, see Robert W. McChesney, Digital Disconnect: How Capitalism Is Turning the Internet Against Democracy (New York: New Press, 2013).
10. Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, “Nonvoters: Who They Are, What They Think,” people-press.org, November 1, 2012.
11. We converted the 2008 figures to 2010 dollars and then applied them to 2010 income data. We rounded to the nearest whole number. Income percentile is a rough estimate made by converting mean household income estimates into 2010 dollars and then using a percentile calculator to determine which percentile each group would fall into. Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates for 2008 and 2010, “Mean Household Income of Quintiles.” American FactFinder, http://factfinder2.census.gov (accessed November 27, 2012); Current Population Survey, “Voting and Registration Supplement,” 2008 and 2010, DataFerret Microdata.
12. Walter Dean Burnham, “The Appearance and Disappearance of the American Voter,” in Thomas Ferguson and Joel Rogers, eds., The Political Economy (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1984), 112–137.
13. Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson, Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer—and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010), chap. 4
14. In 2012, two major studies were published along these lines. See Martin Gilens, Affluence and Influence: Economic Inequality and Political Power in America (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012); and Kay Lehman Schlozman, Sidney Verba, and Henry E. Brady, The Unheavenly Chorus: Unequal Political Voice and the Broken Promise of American Democracy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012). See also Larry M. Bartels, Unequal Democracy (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2008); and Martin Gilens, “Inequality and Democratic Responsiveness,” Public Opinion Quarterly 69, no. 5 (2005): 778–796. There is a superb discussion of inequality and governance in Hacker and Pierson, Winner-Take-All Politics, chap. 4.
15. The manner in which the two parties seized control of presidential debates is striking in this regard. See George Farah, No Debate: How the Republican and Democratic Parties Secretly Control the Presidential Debates (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2004).
16. See Gary Johnson, “Breaking the Two-Party Stranglehold That Is Killing American Democracy,” The Guardian, November 3, 2012.
17. “2012 Congressional Elections Demonstrate Need for Fair Voting,” Fair Vote: The Center for Voting and Democracy, November 2012.
18. Emily Bazelon, “It’s Appalling That Gerrymandering Is Legal,” slate.com, November 9, 2012. Republicans controlled redistricting in twenty-four states, compared to eight for the Democrats. Democratic votes being highly concentrated in urban areas made it much easier to do effective gerrymandering for Republicans as well. See “The No-Wave Election,” The Economist, November 3, 2012, 29–30.
19. Rob Richie and Devin McCarthy, “FairVote’s Unique Methodology Shows That 52% of Voters Wanted a Democratic House,” FairVote: The Center for Voting and Democracy, November 13, 2012.
20. Mark Karlin, “Most American Voters Elected a Democratic House, but We Got a Tea Party Congress,” Truth-out.org, November 26, 2012.
21. “How to Rig an Election,” The Economist, April 25, 2002.
22. Adam Liptak, “The Vanishing Battleground,” Sunday Review section, New York Times, November 4, 2012.
23. Richard K. Matthews, The Radical Politics of Thomas Jefferson: A Revisionist View (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1984), 83.
24. Aristotle, Politics, trans. Benjamin Jowett (Stilwell, KS: Digireads, 2005), 60. Aristotle of course was no friend of democracy; he was a supporter of an aristocratic constitution. Moreover, even the supporters of the demos in ancient Greece had in mind only male citizens, thereby excluding women and slaves. See Ellen Meiksins Wood and Neal Wood, Class Ideology and Ancient Political Theory (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978).
25. For an interesting argument that campaign spending led to profligate corruption and the end of the Roman Republic, see Rob Goodman and Jimmy Soni, “How Political Campaign Spending Brought Down the Roman Republic,” slate.com, November 26, 2012.
26. See Alexander Keyssar, The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States (New York: Basic Books, 2000), 15, 11.
27. Jack N. Rakove, “James Madison and the Bill of Rights,” in This Constitution: A Bicentennial Chronicle (Washington, DC: Project ’87 of the American Political Science Association and American Historical Association, Fall 1985).
28. There has been much fine writing on the contested presidential election of 1800. We place a high value on Bernard A. Weisberger’s America Afire: Jefferson, Adams, and the First Contested Election (New York: William Morrow Paperbacks, 2001).
29. Cited in Juan Gonzalez and Joseph Torres, News for All the People: The Epic Story of Race and the American Media (New York: Verso, 2011), 37.
30. Sean Wilentz, The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln (New York: Norton, 2005); and Sean Wilentz, Andrew Jackson (New York: Times Books, 2005).
31. In exploring the history of campaign finance reform, we relied on many sources, including discussions with Professor Carin Clauss of the University of Wisconsin Law School, whose research on historic initiatives to clean up politics informed this chapter. She participated in the 1997 Heffernan Commission, which sought to develop a comprehensive plan for campaign finance reform in Wisconsin. The commission’s work can be reviewed at http://www.fightingbob.com/files/heffernan_commission_report.pdf. We also relied on the terrific work of Robert G. Kaiser, whose “Citizen K Street: How Lobbying Became Washington’s Biggest Business” series appeared in the Washington Post in April 2007. We also depended on Jill Lepore, “Money Talks: Who’s Fighting for Campaign-Finance Reform?” New Yorker, July 10, 2012. Jeff Clement, whose work in this area has been groundbreaking and essential, wrote about some of these issues in his book Corporations Are Not People: Why They Have More Rights Than You Do and What You Can Do About It (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2012); as did Thom Hartmann, Unequal Protection: How Corporations Became “People”—and How You Can Fight Back (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2010).
32. Quoted in Robert C. Nesbit, Wisconsin: A History (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2004), 364.
33. Both quoted in Timothy Noah, “Mitt Romney: Crybaby Capitalist,” New Republic, July 16, 2012.
34. Quoted in David D. Kirkpatrick, “Does Corporate Money Lead to Political Corruption?,” New York Times, January 23, 2010.
35. Quoted in Jack Beatty, Age of Betrayal: The Triumph of Money in America, 1865–1900 (New York: Knopf, 2007), xv.
36. Theodore Roosevelt, “The Man with the Muck-Rake,” April 14, 1906, http://voicesofdemocracy.umd.edu/theodore-roosevelt-the-man-with-the-muck-rake-speech-text/.
37. David P. Thelen, Robert M. La Follette and the Insurgent Spirit (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1986), 82.
38. Theodore Roosevelt, “Political Assessments in the Coming Campaign,” The Atlantic, July 1892, http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1892/07/political-assessments-in-the-coming-campaign/306067/?single_page=true; Jack Beatty, “A Sisyphean History of Campaign Finance Reform: A Look at How We Ended Up Back Where We Began,” The Atlantic, July 2007; Beatty, Age of Betrayal.
39. See Beatty, “A Sisyphean History”; and Nancy Unger, Fighting Bob La Follette: The Righteous Reformer (Madison: Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2008).
40. For biographical details and many of the quotes featured in this section, we relied on Wheeler’s autobiography, Yankee from the West: The Candid, Turbulent Life Story of the Yankee-Born U.S. Senator from Montana (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1962); as well as on Richard T. Ruettens, “Burton K. Wheeler, 1905–1925: An Independent Liberal Under Fire” (MA thesis, University of Oregon, Eugene; 1957). Additionally, we relied on the archives of the New York Times, which covered Wheeler and the Montana fight extensively.
41. Progressive Party, “Progressive Party Platform of 1924,” November 4, 1924, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=29618.
42. Peter Overby, “A Century of U.S. Campaign Finance Law,” NPR, Web timeline, January 21, 2010, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121293380; Kurt Hohenstein, Coining Corruption: The Making of the American Campaign Finance System (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2007).
43. Lyndon Johnson, “Statement by the President upon Signing the Foreign Investors Tax Act and the Presidential Election Fund Act, November 13, 1966,” http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=28030.
44. Tom Wicker, “Kennedy Orders Vote-Cost Study,” New York Times, October 5, 1961.
45. “On Campaign Funds,” New York Times, April 22, 1962.
46. Frank Church, “Campaign Money—How Much? From Whom?” New York Times, August 26, 1962.
47. Ibid.
48. Records of the Commission on Campaign Costs, which operated from October 4, 1961, to September 17, 1962, are contained in the Papers of John F. Kennedy, Presidential Papers, President’s Office Files. Extensive coverage of the commission’s work appeared in the New York Times in 1961 and 1962. Information about Truman and Eisenhower can be found in Peter Braestrup, “2 Ex-Presidents Spurn Party Gifts; Tax Incentives to Increase Contributions Backed by Eisenhower and Truman,” New York Times, May 27, 1962.
49. Kennedy appointed Alexander Heard of the University of North Carolina to chair the commission. See Alexander Heard, The Costs of Democracy: Financing American Political Campaigns (Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1962).
50. Braestrup, “2 Ex-Presidents.”
51. Editorial, New York Times, May 24, 1962.
52. Wicker, “Kennedy Orders Vote-Cost Study.”
53. Lyndon Johnson, “Special Message to the Congress on Election Reform: The Political Process in America,” May 25, 1967, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=28268.
54. “A Pointless Proposal,” Wall Street Journal, June 9, 1967.
55. See Jefferson Cowie, Stayin’ Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class (New York: New Press, 2010).
56. Public Citizen, http://www.citizen.org. Still true to its founding principles, Public Citizen is in the forefront of movements to reform media and politics with an eye toward reducing the influence of corporations and increasing the power of citizens.
57. George McGovern, An American Journey (New York: Random House, 1974).
58. Ron Dellums, with H. Lee Halterman, Lying Down with the Lions: A Public Life from the Streets of Oakland to the Halls of Power (Boston: Beacon Press, 2000); Suzanne Braun Levine and Mary Thom, Bella Abzug: How One Tough Broad from the Bronx Fought Jim Crow and Joe McCarthy, Pissed Off Jimmy Carter, Battled for the Rights of Women and Workers and for the Planet, and Shook Up Politics Along the Way (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007); “Biography of Justin Ravitz,” Ravitz Mediation Services LLC, http://ravitzmediation.com/id1.html.
59. Federal Election Commission, Federal Campaign Finance Laws, http://www.fec.gov/law/feca/feca.shtml. On the FEC and FECA historical background, see http://www.fec.gov/pages/brochures/fecfeca.shtml#Historical_Background.
60. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, All the President’s Men, 2nd ed. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994); Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, The Final Days (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004).
61. Ben A. Franklin, “Senate Votes Top on Political Gifts; $3,000 Ceiling on Donations to Candidate Put in Bill—Parties Could Get More Senate Votes Lid on Political Donations; Future Is Uncertain; Disenchantment Clear,” New York Times, July 27, 1973.
62. Andy Kroll, “Follow the Dark Money,” Mother Jones, July/August 2012, 19–20.
63. John Gardner, “John W. Gardner Launches Membership Campaign for Common Cause,” Common Cause About Us archives, August 18, 1970, http://www.commoncause.org/site/pp.asp?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=4860209.
64. David Vogel, Fluctuating Fortunes: The Political Power of Business in America (New York: Basic Books, 1989), 59.
65. See, for example, Morton Mintz and Jerry S. Cohen, with an Introduction by Ralph Nader, America, Inc.: Who Owns and Operates the United States (New York: Dell, 1971).
66. Michael Crozier, Samuel P. Huntington, and Joji Watanuki, The Crisis of Democracy: Report on the Governability of Democracies to the Trilateral Commission (New York: New York University Press, 1975), 74, 75, 79, 83, 113.
67. Ibid., 114.
68. Quoted at http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/10/06–5.
69. Lost to history, for example, has been the very impressive burgeoning media reform movement of the 1970s. See Pamela Draves, ed., Citizens Media Directory (Washington, DC: National Citizens Committee for Broadcasting, 1977).
70. For an excellent treatment of the transformation of the Republican Party, see Geoffrey Kabaservice, Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation in the Republican Party from Eisenhower to the Tea Party (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012).
71. Norman Ornstein, “Mitch McConnell vs. Himself on Disclosure Issues,” Roll Call, June 20, 2012.
72. Matthew A. Crenson and Benjamin Ginsberg, Downsizing Democracy (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002), 49.
73. Quoted in John Nichols, “The Secret of Bernie Sanders’s Success,” The Nation, December 4, 2012.
74. Quoted in “What Election 2012 Reveals About America and Its Shifting Racial Faultlines,” bill moyers.com, November 9, 2012.
75. See Steven M. Telese, The Rise of the Conservative Legal Movement (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008).
76. Quoted in Sebastian Meyer, “Political Parties Are Basically Bank Accounts,” InTheseTimes.com, November 1, 2012.
77. “Romney Agrees with Obama . . . on Everything,” Huffington Post video, October 23, 2012, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/22/romney-obama-debate_n_2004105.html; Ryan Grim and Joshua Hersh, “Presidential Debate: Obama, Romney Agree on Foreign Policy,” Huffington Post, October 23, 2012.
78. Alex Seitz-Wald, “Everyone Hates Citizens United: A New Poll Shows the Vast Majority of Americans Think There’s Too Much Money in Politics,” Salon, October 25, 2012. The poll cited here was conducted by the firm Bannon Communications for the Corporate Reform Coalition.
1. Jeff Zeleny, “Mogul’s Latest Foray Courts Jews for the G.O.P.,” New York Times, July 25, 2012.
2. Calvin Coolidge, speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, Washington, DC, January 17, 1924; Claude Fuess, Calvin Coolidge: The Man from Vermont (Boston: Little Brown, 1940), 358.
3. Coolidge speech.
4. Donald Trump, with Tony Schwartz, The Art of the Deal (New York: Ballantine Books, 2004).
5. The site’s still up: www.TrumpHQ.com.
6. Dean Debnam, “The GOP’s Front-Runner Is . . . Donald Trump?,” Public Policy Polling, April 14, 2011.
7. Maggie Haberman, “Donald Trump Says He Won’t Run in 2012,” Politico, May 16, 2011.
8. Sean Hannity transcript, “Trump May Run as Independent if GOP Picks ‘Loser,’” www.foxnews.com, June 14, 2011, http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/hannity/transcript/trump-may-run-independent-if-gop-picks-loser.
9. Neil King Jr., “Trump Threatens to Spend Millions on a Presidential Run,” Wall Street Journal, November 22, 2011.
10. Michael Waldman, “Why Doesn’t Mitt Romney Contribute to His Own Campaign?,” Reuters, September 25, 2012.
11. www.opensecrets.org (accessed February 6, 2013). Many groups analyze and review campaign spending. We think the Center for Responsive Politics’ work stands out. We also like that it named its phone app “Dollarocracy.”
12. Ibid.
13. Center for Responsive Politics, “2012 Election Spending Will Reach $6 Billion, Center for Responsive Politics Predicts,” www.opensecrets.org, October 31, 2012. See section “Rise of the Wealthy Donor.”
14. Lawrence Lessig, “The Founders Versus the Funders,” The Progressive, October 2012, 20–21; Chris Rickert, “Campaign Fundraising Holds Our Attention,” Wisconsin State Journal, January 28, 2012.
15. Sundeep Iyer, “Election Spending 2012: 25 Toss-Up House Races,” report by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School, 2012, www.brennancenter.org; Katrina vanden Heuvel, “Is a ‘Citizens United’ Democracy a Democracy at All?,” thenation.com, October 26, 2012.
16. Lessig, “The Founders.”
17. Andy Kroll, “Follow the Dark Money,” Mother Jones, July/August 2012, 22.
18. Felicia Sonmez, “Perry Spent More Than $300 Per Vote in Iowa; Santorum, Only 73 Cents,” Washington Post, January 4, 2012.
19. “Facing Romney’s Funding, Staffing Edge, How Will Santorum Fare in N.H.?,” PBS NewsHour, January 4, 2012.
20. Charles Riley, “Romney Campaign Spent $18.50 Per Vote,” CNNMoney, April 25, 2012.
21. Dave Levinthal, “President Obama Outspent Mitt Romney in Last Days,” Politico, December 6, 2012.
22. Elizabeth Wilner, “Romney and Republicans Outspent Obama, but Couldn’t Out-Advertise Him: Targeting and Message-Control Carried the Day,” AdAge, November 9, 2012.
23. Ibid., 1.
24. Nicholas Confessore and Michael Luo, “Obama Allies Feel Pressure to Raise Cash,” New York Times, March 14, 2012.
25. Nicholas Confessore, “Obama Grows More Reliant on Big-Money Contributors,” New York Times, September 13, 2012.
26. Kevin Roose, “Wall St.’s Dinner with Obama: Hold the Scorn,” dealbook.nytimes.com, June 23, 2012.
27. Colleen McCain Nelson, “Political Perceptions: Fundraising Habit Hard to Kick,” blogs.wsj.com, September 28, 2012.
28. Wilner, “Romney and Republicans Outspent Obama.”
29. Conversation between Robert W. McChesney and Seymour Hersh, May 9, 2005.
30. Jennifer Liberto, “Wall Street Set to Break Spending Records This Election,” money.cnn.com, September 5, 2012. For a treatment of the power of finance over both parties and the U.S. government, see Charles Ferguson, Predator Nation: Corporate Criminals, Political Corruption, and the Hijacking of America (New York: Crown Business, 2012). For a treatment of how the “rule of law” has effectively ended in the United States, with all that suggests about the caliber of American democracy, see Glenn Greenwald, With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2011).
31. Daniel Fisher, “Inside the Koch Empire,” Forbes, December 24, 2012, 86.
32. Nick Confessore, “Total Cost of Election Could Be $6 Billion,” New York Times, October 31, 2012.
33. Jonathan D. Salant, “Election Costs to Exceed $6 Billion in 2012, Research Group Says,” Bloomberg Businessweek, October 31, 2012.
34. Christopher Matthews, “Explainer: Did That $6 Billion in Campaign Spending at Least Help the Economy?,” Time, November 9, 2012.
35. Miles Mogulescu, “After $6 Billion Election Campaign, Movement to Get Money Out of Politics Starts a ‘Prairie Fire,’” Huffington Post, November 9, 2012.
36. Center for Responsive Politics, “Historical Elections,” http://www.opensecrets.org/bigpicture/ (accessed February 6, 2013).
37. “Data Points: Presidential Campaign Spending: Barack Obama’s $150 Million September Fundraising Total Is Over a Fifth of the Total Amount of Money All the Presidential Candidates Spent in the 2004 Election,” U.S. News & World Report, October 21, 2008.
38. Center for Responsive Politics, “2012 Election Spending.”
39. Thomas Ferguson, Paul Jorgensen, and Jie Chen, “Revealed: Key Files on Big-Ticket Political Donations Vanish at Federal Election Commission,” AlterNet, July 16, 2012.
40. Luke Rosiak, “Toothless, Overwhelmed FEC Is Ignored by Campaigns,” Washington Times, September 17, 2012.
41. Taylor Lincoln, “Super Connected: Super PACs Devotion to Individual Candidates Undercuts Assumption in Citizens United That Outside Spending Would Be ‘Independent,’” Public Citizen, October 24, 2012, www.citizen.org.
42. Jeremy W. Peters, “Conservative ‘Super PACs’ Synchronize Their Messages,” New York Times, September 24, 2012.
43. Kenneth P. Vogel and Tarini Parti, “The IRS’s ‘Feeble’ Grip on Big Political Cash,” Politico, October 15, 2012.
44. Center for Responsive Politics, “2012 Election Spending.”
45. Alison Fitzgerald and Jonathan D. Salant, “Secret Political Cash Moves Through Nonprofit Daisy Chain,” businessweek.com, October 15, 2012.
46. Paul Abowd, “Tracking the Secret Money Behind an Anti-Environmental Political Group,” open channel.nbcnews.com, October 22, 2012.
47. Brendan Fischer, “Why Don’t We Know How Much ‘Dark Money’ Groups Have Spent on the Election?,” Center for Media and Democracy’s PRWatch, November 5, 2012, http://www.prwatch.org/news/2012/11/11838/why-dont-we-know-how-much-dark-money-groups-have-spent-election.
48. Ibid.
49. Paul Blumenthal, “Romney Victory Raises $140 Million, Exploits Campaign Finance Loophole,” Huffington Post, July 16, 2012.
50. Lisa Graves, “After the $6 Billion Election, Calls for Subpoenas and Amendments,” Center for Media and Democracy’s PRWatch, November 15, 2012; italics added.
51. Brendan Fischer, “Outside Election Spending Up at Least 400% Since 2008,” Center for Media and Democracy’s PRWatch, November 2, 2012, www.prwatch.org.
52. Peter H. Stone, “Sheldon Adelson Spent Far More on Campaign Than Previously Known,” Huffington Post, December 3, 2012.
53. Interview with Center for Media and Democracy staff, December 4, 2012.
54. Adam Crowther, Outside Money Takes the Inside Track (Washington, DC: Public Citizen, 2012).
55. Kim Barker, “In Montana, Dark Money Helped Democrats Hold a Key Senate Seat,” talking pointsmemo.com, December 29, 2012.
56. John Nichols, “ALEC Exposed,” The Nation, July 12, 2011.
57. SourceWatch, “Betsy DeVos,” www.sourcewatch.org, January 12, 2012.
58. Associated Press, “DeVos PAC Fined Record $5.2 Million by Ohio Elections Board,” April 5, 2008.
59. Ibid.
60. John Nichols, “Scott Walker’s Billionaire Boys Club: Big Money Backs Anti-Labor Agenda,” The Nation, May 2, 2012, http://www.thenation.com/blog/167664/scott-walkers-billionaire-boys-club-big-money-backs-anti-labor-agenda.
61. Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, “Recall Race for Governor Cost $81 Million: Fifteen Recall Races in 2011 and 2012 Cost $137 Million,” www.wisdc.org, July 25, 2012.
62. Ibid.
63. Brendan Fischer, “Wisconsin Newspapers Create False Equivalency on Recall Spending,” Center for Media and Democracy’s PRWatch, May 24, 2012.
64. Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, “Recall Race.”
65. For Washington, see Andrew Garber, “Tab for Governor’s Race: $46 million: Republican Gubernatorial Candidate Rob McKenna and Democrat Jay Inslee Have Raised About $25 Million Combined, and an Additional $21 Million Has Been Thrown in by Independent Expenditure Campaigns,” Seattle Times, November 3, 2012; this report was from the weekend before the election. For Missouri, see Chris Jasper, “Campaign Spending Fuels Missouri Races,” MU Maneater, November 2, 2012. For North Carolina, see John Frank, “Governor: McCrory Becomes First Republican to Win Governor’s Race in 20 Years,” News and Observer, November 7, 2012; Chris Kromm, “Big Money Plays Big Role in North Carolina Elections,” Facing South (Institute for Southern Studies), November 14, 2012, http://www.southernstudies.org/2012/11/big-money-plays-big-role-in-north-carolina-elections.html. For New Hampshire, see Brian Wallstin, “Hassan’s Win Powered by $11 Million in Outside Spending,” New Hampshire Public Radio, November 16, 2012.
66. National Institute on Money in State Politics, “Total Dollars for All Gubernatorial Candidates,” December 12, 2012, http://www.followthemoney.org/database/nationalview.phtml?l=0&f=G&y=2012&abbr=0.
67. Alexander Burns, “RSLC Raises $38 Million for the Cycle,” Politico, October 31, 2012.
68. John Surico, “NYAG Eric Schneiderman’s New Wall Street Fraud Target: Credit Suisse,” Village Voice, November 21, 2012; and “Republican Attorneys General Association,” Center for Media and Democracy’s SourceWatch (accessed January 14, 2013).
69. “Republican Attorneys General Association”; R. Jeffrey Smith and Tania Branigan, “GOP Attorneys General Asked for Corporate Contributions,” Washington Post, July 17, 2003.
70. “RSLC Statement on 2012 Elections,” rslc.com, November 07, 2012.
71. Ibid.
72. Chris Dickerson, “Morrisey Files to Run for AG,” West Virginia,” West Virginia Record, January 28, 2012.
73. Associated Press, “Non-Candidate Ad Spending in W.Va. Races Tops $5M,” Huntington (WV) Herald-Dispatch, October 22, 2012.
74. Ry Rivard, “Huge Out-Of-State Spending in West Virginia Attorney General’s Race,” Charleston Daily Mail, October 18, 2012.
75. West Virginia Secretary of State, “Electioneering Communications & Independent Expenditures,” and “Electioneering Communications” listings, http://apps.sos.wv.gov/elections/ecie/ (accessed December 6, 2012).
76. American Future Fund, “The AG Project,” http://americanfuturefund.com/agproject/ (accessed December 6, 2012).
77. National Institute on Money in State Politics, “Missouri 2012,” http://www.followthemoney.org/database/state_overview.phtml?y=2012&s=MO (accessed December 6, 2012).
78. Riley, “Romney Campaign.”
79. California Fair Political Practices Commission, “2012 Independent Spending on Legislative Races,” and National Institute on Money in State Politics, “California 2012,” http://www.followthemoney.org/database/state_overview.phtml?y=2012&s=CA (both accessed November 20, 2012).
80. National Institute, “California 2012”; Karl Kurtz, “What Role Will Independent PACs Play in State Legislative Races?,” “The Thicket” at State Legislatures, May 22, 2012; Karen Shanton, “Big Money Making a Big Splash in Some State Legislative Races,” “The Thicket” at State Legislatures, November 2, 2012.
81. See Diane Ravitch, The Death and Life and the Great American School System (New York: Basic Books, 2010).
82. Mayoral Elections Center, U.S. Conference of Mayors, http://www.usmayors.org/elections/displayelections2012listing.asp.
83. Lauren Steussy, “Candidates to Break Pattern of Moderate Mayor in San Diego: Republican Carl DeMaio and Democrat Bob Filner Will Both Lead San Diego Down an Unfamiliar Path,” NBCSanDiego, Tuesday, November 6, 2012, Source: http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/Candidates-Break-Pattern-of-Moderate-Mayor-in-San-Diego-177175381.html#ixzz2ErdMQUiB.
84. Tracy Seipel and John Woolfolk, “Race for San Jose District 8 Council Seat Awash in Independent Expenditures,” San Jose Mercury News, October 26, 2012.
85. Lawrence Mower, “Incumbents Attract Big Money in County Commission Races,” Las Vegas Review-Journal, November 4, 2012.
86. Jon Kuhl, “History-Making Ballot Measures Pass Throughout Country,” “The Thicket” at State Legislatures, November 7, 2012.
87. Heather Pilatic, “What Matters About California’s GE Labeling Fight,” Huffington Post, November 8, 2012.
88. “Ballot Measures 2012,” iSolon.org; “Voters Edge: Ballot Measures 2012,” MapLight.org, http://votersedge.org/.
89. Chad Livengood, “Campaign Spending in Michigan Hits $175M: Ballot Issues Draw Most Cash, but Court, House Races Add to Total,” Detroit News, November 5, 2012.
90. Laura Myers, “Adelson Political Bankroll to Grow,” Las Vegas Review-Journal, December 10, 2012.
91. Billy Corriher, “Big Business Taking Over State Supreme Courts,” americanprogress.org, August 13, 2012.
92. Susan Saladoff’s 2011 documentary Hot Coffee analyzes this trend and its implications, http://www.hotcoffeethemovie.com/.
93. Eduardo Porter, “Unleashing the Campaign Contributions of Corporations,” New York Times, August 28, 2012.
94. Billy Corriher, “Money Undermines Judges’ Impartiality,” usatoday.com, November 12, 2012.
95. Brennan Center for Justice and Justice at Stake Campaign, “New Data Shows Judicial Election Ad Spending Breaks Record at $29.7 Million: One Outside Group Spent $429,000 in Louisiana Election,” www.justiceatstake.org, December 17, 2012.
96. Ibid.
97. Quoted in Peter Hardin, “Toobin: Court Elections the ‘Biggest Outrage’ in Political Spending,” gavel grab.org, August 14, 2012.
98. Corriher, “Money Undermines Judges’ Impartiality.”
99. Justice at Stake Campaign, “National Poll: Public Rejects Candidates’ Attacks on Courts: Voters Want Judges Accountable to the Constitution, Not Congress,” December 22, 2011, http://www.justiceatstake.org/newsroom/press_releases.cfm/national_poll_public_rejects_candidates_attacksoncourts?show=news&newsID=12282.
100. Erika Eichelberger, “In States with GOP-Dominated Courts, Is Judicial Election Spending Pointless?,” motherjones.com, September 20, 2012.
101. Dave Levinthal, “Sheldon Adelson Gave $10 Million to Pro-Romney SuperPAC,” Politico, December 6, 2012.
102. Myers, “Adelson Political Bankroll.”
103. National Nurses United, “Tele-Press Conference to Demand Deceitful New Ad Be Taken Off the Air,” September 27, 2012. http://www.nationalnursesunited.org/news/entry/tele-press-conference-to-demand-that-new-ad-full-of-lies-be-taken-off-the-air.
104. Myers, “Adelson Political Bankroll.”
105. Steven Greenhouse, “In Michigan, a Setback for Unions,” New York Times, November 8, 2012.
106. Myers, “Adelson Political Bankroll.”
107. John Nichols, “GOP, Koch Brothers Sneak Attack Guts Labor Rights in Michigan,” The Nation, December 6, 2012.
108. Alicia Mundy, “Adelson to Keep Betting on the GOP,” Wall Street Journal, December 4, 2012.
109. Matea Gold, “Outside Groups Changing the Political Game for Good,” latimes.com, October 21, 2012.
110. Janet Stilson, “Issue Ads to Go into Overdrive,” adweek.com, November 26, 2012.
111. Quoted in Michael Kranish, “Despite ’12 losses, Super Pacs May Play Role in Midterm Elections,” boston.com, November 15, 2012.
112. Nicholas Confessore, “‘Super PACS’ Let Strategists Off the Leash,” New York Times, May 21, 2012.
113. Quoted in Ted Johnson, “Election’s End Doesn’t Stop Ads,” variety.com, December 1, 2012.
114. Steven Bertoni, “Why Sheldon Adelson’s Election Donations Were Millions Well Spent,” Forbes, November 8, 2012.
115. Obviously, this is a thought exercise. The Koch brothers and Adelson do not have their assets in liquid form; if they actually sold off assets to generate billions of dollars in cash for political spending, their net worths would likely decline.
116. Porter, “Unleashing the Campaign Contributions.”
117. Seth Hanlon, “Sheldon Adelson’s Return on Investment: Billionaire Donor Could Turn $100 Million Invested in the 2012 Presidential Race into a $2 Billion Tax Cut If Romney Is Elected,” Center for American Progress Action Fund, September 11, 2012.
118. Robert Reich, “Why Billionaires Will Keep Pouring Money into Politics,” Robert Reich’s Blog, December 12, 2012, http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277–75/14986-why-billionaires-will-keep-pouring-money-into-politics.
119. Kenneth P. Vogel and Tarini Parti, “Inside Koch World,” Politico, June 15, 2012.
1. Ben A. Franklin, “Senate Votes Top on Political Gifts; $3,000 Ceiling on Donations to Candidate Put in Bill—Parties Could Get More, Senate Votes Lid on Political Donations, Future Is Uncertain, Disenchantment Clear,” New York Times, July 27, 1973.
2. Dumas Malone, Jefferson and His Time: The Sage of Monticello (Boston: Little, Brown, 1981), 6:473–481, 488–490, 495–499, 511.
3. James L. Buckley, et al. v. Francis R. Valeo, Secretary of the United States Senate, et al., 96 S.Ct. 612; 46 L. Ed. 2d 659; 1976 U.S. LEXIS 16; 76–1 U.S. Tax Cas. (CCH) P9189. See also Richard Hasen, “The Untold Drafting History of Buckley v. Valeo,” Election Law Journal: Rules, Politics, and Policy 2, no. 2 (2003): 241–253.
4. Buckley v. Valeo.
5. Ibid.
6. For a superb discussion of Rehnquist and his politics, see John A. Jenkins, The Partisan: The Life of William Rehnquist (New York: PublicAffairs, 2013).
7. Chandler Davidson, Tanya Dunlap, Gale Kenny, and Benjamin Wise, “Republican Ballot Security Programs: Vote Protection or Minority Vote Suppression—or Both? A Report to the Center for Voting Rights and Protection” (New York: Center for Voting Rights and Protection, September 2004). See also “As Supreme Court Decides Presidency, Chief Justice Rehnquist Is Accused of Past Harassment of Black Voters at the Polls,” Democracy Now, December 12, 2000.
8. Rick Perlstein, Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America (New York: Scribner, 2008), 605.
9. In the “Watergate” election of 1974, Democrats gained 4 U.S. Senate seats and 49 U.S. House seats, sweeping in a generation of young reformers who promised a new era of ethics and campaign finance reforms. See Andrew E. Busch, “1974 Midterms Bolster Liberalism in Congress,” Ashbrook Center report (Ashland, OH: Ashland University, August 2006).
10. Buckley v. Valeo, Rehnquist concurring in part, dissenting in part.
11. Ibid., Burger dissenting.
12. First National Bank of Boston, et al. v. Francis X. Bellotti, Attorney General of Massachusetts, 435 U.S. 765.
13. Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong, The Brethren: Inside the Supreme Court (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1979). See also Linda Greenhouse, “Lewis Powell, Crucial Centrist Justice, Dies at 90,” New York Times, August 26, 1998.
14. Greenhouse, “Lewis Powell.”
15. Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson, Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer—and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010); Bill Moyers, “The Powell Memo: A Call-to-Arms for Corporations,” www.billmoyers.com, September 14, 2012. See also Jeff Clement, Corporations Are Not People: Why They Have More Rights Than You Do and What You Can Do About It (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2012).
16. Clement, Corporations Are Not People.
17. Hacker and Pierson, Winner-Take-All Politics.
18. Quoted in Joan Biskupic and Fred Barbash, “Retired Justice Lewis Powell Dies at 90,” Washington Post, August 26, 1998.
19. Richard Lowitt, Fred Harris: His Journey from Liberalism to Populism (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002), 218.
20. Charlie Cray, “The Lewis Powell Memo—Corporate Blueprint to Dominate Democracy,” Greenpeace USA, August 23, 2011.
21. Lewis F. Powell Jr., “Confidential Memorandum: Attack on American Free Enterprise System,” http://www.greenpeace.org/.
22. Ibid.
23. Ibid.
24. Ibid. See also Henry A. Giroux, “The Powell Memo and the Teaching Machines of Right-Wing Extremists,” TruthOut, October 1, 2009; and the analysis by the San Francisco–based Commonweal Institute, http://commonwealinstitute.org (accessed October 15, 2012).
25. Powell, “Confidential Memorandum.”
26. Ibid.
27. M. Stanton Evans, The Liberal Establishment: Who Runs America . . . and How (New York: Devin-Adair, 1965). The Goldwater campaign of 1964 incorporated a broad conservative critique of media, business, and government as the lynchpins of a liberal establishment. But the Goldwater camp’s complaint tended to be with “Liberal Republicans” of the Nelson Rockefeller and Jacob Javits camp. Powell would extend the complaint dramatically, creating the image of a media and governing establishment, influenced by activists such as Nader and by an expanding electorate, to advance and celebrate supposedly anticorporate policies.
28. A conservative who made a similar case to Powell in the 1970s was President Gerald Ford’s secretary of the Treasury, William E. Simon. See William E. Simon, A Time for Truth (New York: Reader’s Digest Press, 1978).
29. Moyers, “The Powell Memo.”
30. Michael Pertschuk, Revolt Against Regulation (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1982), 16.
31. “Business Responds to Consumerism,” Bloomberg Businessweek, September 6, 1969, 96.
32. Molly Niesen, “Crisis of Consumerism: Advertising, Activism, and the Battle Over the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, 1969–1980” (PhD diss., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2012), 70.
33. John Nichols, “The Wisconsin Model,” The Progressive, July 2011.
34. Clement, Corporations Are Not People. See also Tom Hamburger and Melanie Mason, “Chamber of Commerce Getting Early Start with Attack Ads,” Los Angeles Times, November 16, 2011.
35. Lisa Graves, “A CMD Special Report on ALEC’s Funding and Spending,” Center for Media and Democracy’s PRWatch, July 13, 2011, http://www.prwatch.org/news/2011/07/10887/cmd-special-report-alecs-funding-and-spending.
36. See Steven M. Teles, The Rise of the Conservative Legal Movement (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008).
37. Media Research Center, “About the Media Research Center: Bringing Political Balance to the Media,” http://archive.mrc.org/about/aboutwelcome.asp. People for the American Way’s “Right-Wing Watch” project was an invaluable resource. It can be accessed at http://www.rightwingwatch.org.
38. Hacker and Pierson, Winner-Take-All Politics, chap. 5.
39. David Vogel, Fluctuating Fortunes: The Political Power of Business in America (Frederick, MD: Beard Books, 1989), 197.
40. Hacker and Pierson, Winner-Take-All Politics.
41. Lawrence Lessig, Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress—and a Plan to Stop It (New York: Twelve, 2011), 99, 123.
42. Quoted in David Sirota, “Post-Election, Politicos Cash In,” salon.com, November 9, 2012.
43. Quoted in Kevin Bogardus, “K Street Headhunters Enamored with Upcoming Class of Retiring Lawmakers,” The Hill, January 19, 2012.
44. Karl Taro Greenfeld, “Mr. Dodd Goes to Hollywood,” Bloomberg Businessweek, November 15, 2012, 80.
45. Quoted in Moyers, “The Powell Memo.”
46. Benjy Sarlin, “Jim DeMint Leaving Senate for Heritage Foundation,” Talking Points Memo, December 6, 2012.
47. Jack Anderson, “Powell’s Advice to Business,” syndicated column, September 28, 1972.
48. Powell, “Confidential Memorandum.”
49. John Rawls, Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press: 1993), 361. For a review of John Rawls’s assessment of the decision, see James Fleming, “Securing Deliberative Democracy,” Fordham Law Review 72 (2004): 1435. See also “Statement in Support of Overturning Buckley v. Valeo,” joint statement organized by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, the National Voting Rights Institute, and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, http://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/legacy/d/buckley.pdf. Rawls was a signer of the statement.
50. First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti.
51. Ibid.
52. Ibid.
53. Hart Research Associates, “Protecting Democracy from Unlimited Corporate Spending,” results from a national survey among 1,000 voters on the Citizens United decision, conducted June 6–7, 2010.
54. First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, Rehnquist dissenting, http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=435&invol=765.
55. Ibid.
56. Polls continue to show that a wide majority of Americans, including substantial numbers of conservatives, favor restrictions on money in politics. See Kevin Robillard, “Poll: No Unlimited Political Spending,” Politico, July 18, 2012; and Ian Millhiser, “More Americans Believe in Witchcraft Than Agree with Citizens United,” Think Progress, April 24, 2012.
57. Sergio Munoz, “John Roberts Is Still a Pro-Corporate Conservative, and the Media Shouldn’t Be Fooled,” Media Matters, October 1, 2012, http://mediamatters.org/blog/2012/10/01/john-roberts-is-still-a-pro-corporate-conservat/190237.
58. Robert Barnes, “Roberts Court Rulings on Campaign Finance Reveal Shifting Makeup, Forceful Role,” Washington Post, November 1, 2010.
59. Ibid.
60. Federal Election Commission v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc., 551 U.S. 449; Nathaniel Persily, “The Floodgates Were Already Open: What Will the Supreme Court’s Campaign Finance Ruling Really Change?,” Slate, January 25, 2010.
61. Philip Rucker, “Citizens United Used ‘Hillary: The Movie’ to Take on McCain-Feingold,” Washington Post, January 22, 2010.
62. Quoted in Adam Liptak, “Justices Turn Minor Movie Case into a Blockbuster,” New York Times, January 22, 2010.
63. Ibid.
64. Citizens United, Appellant v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 310, 130 S.Ct. 876.
65. Ibid.
66. Stephen R. Weissman, “Campaign Finance Ruling’s Likely Impact Overblown: The Supreme Court’s Decision Striking Down Limits on Corporate Spending in Election Campaigns Is Unlikely to Change the Political Situation on the Ground,” Los Angeles Times, January 28, 2010.
67. Jeff Zeleny, “GOP Captures House but Not Senate,” New York Times, November 2, 2010. See also Evan Mackinder, “A Republican Wave,” OpenSecretsBlog, November 3, 2010.
68. Quoted in John Nichols and Robert W. McChesney, “The Money and Media Election Complex,” The Nation, November 10, 2010.
69. John Nichols, “Unions Can’t Compete with Corporate Campaign Cash,” The Nation, January 24, 2010. See also Open Secrets, “Super PACS,” http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/superpacs.php (accessed September 20, 2012).
70. Quoted in Nichols, “Unions Can’t Compete.”
71. The New York Times in a June 22, 2012, editorial, “The Anti-Union Roberts Court,” wrote, “The Supreme Court’s ruling this week in Knox v. Service Employees International Union is one of the most brazen of the Roberts court. It shows how defiantly the five justices act in advancing the aggressive conservatism of their majority on the court. The court’s moderate liberals were rightly dismayed by the majority’s willingness to breach court rules in pursuit of its agenda. In this labor union case, there is no getting around that the legal approach is indistinguishable from politics. The court’s five conservatives ruled that in 2005, Local 1000 of the Service Employees International Union should have sent a notice to all nonmembers it represented when it imposed a temporary 25 percent increase in union dues for public-sector employees in California to fight two anti-union ballot measures.”
72. Knox v. Service Employees Int’l Union, Local 1000, 132 S.Ct. 2277, 183 L. Ed. 2d 281, 193 LRRM 2641 (2012) [2012 BL 153979].
73. Ibid.
74. “The Court and Citizens United II,” New York Times, February 22, 2012.
75. Rachel Leven, “Supreme Court Summarily Reverses Montana’s Citizens United Case,” The Hill, June 25, 2012.
76. Ibid.
77. Quoted in Rachel Weiner, “Supreme Court’s Montana Decision Strengthens Citizens United,” Washington Post, June 25, 2012.
78. Jon Tester, “Tester: Citizens United Ruling a Threat to Democracy,” statement to Senate Judiciary Committee, September 12, 2012.
79. Bernie Sanders, “Statement on Supreme Court Ruling in Montana Campaign Funding Case,” June 25, 2012.
80. Ibid.
1. “Meet Bridget,” Bridget Mary McCormack for Michigan Supreme Court Web site, www.mccormackforjustice.com.
2. Ibid.
3. Andrew Rosenthal, “Everyone Deserves Legal Representation,” New York Times, November 1, 2012.
4. Ibid.
5. Dawson Bell, “Michigan Supreme Court Candidate Defends Against Terrorism Claim,” Detroit Free Press, October 31, 2012.
6. Ibid.
7. Ryan J. Stanton, “Q&A with Ann Arbor’s Bridget McCormack on Being Elected to the Michigan Supreme Court,” AnnArbor.com, November 11, 2012.
8. Quoted in Meg James, “Cable Television Gaining in Advertising Revenues, but Not Political Dollars,” Los Angeles Times, June 17, 2011, http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2011/06/cable-television-gaining-in-advertising-revenue-but-not-political-dollars.html.
9. “A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right,” Thomas Paine wrote at the beginning of Common Sense, the book that helped ignite the American Revolution, “and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom.” In many respects, this is the case with how Americans have come to regard TV political advertising as the natural form of political communication, and election campaigns appear unimaginable without them.
10. See Greg Mitchell, The Campaign of the Century: Upton Sinclair’s E.P.I.C. Race for Governor of California and the Birth of Media Politics (New York: Random House, 1992). See also Jill Lepore, “On the Campaign Trail,” New Yorker, September 19, 2012, http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/09/a-history-of-political-consultants.html#ixzz2BGDZNINh.
11. This point is made in an excellent discussion of this rise of political advertising in Lizabeth Cohen, A Consumer’s Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America (New York: Random House, 2003), 332.
12. See David Halberstam, The Fifties (New York: Random House, 1993), 227.
13. Vance Packard, The Hidden Persuaders (New York: Pocket Books, 1957), 156.
14. Ibid., 161.
15. Quoted in Halberstam, The Fifties, 229–230.
16. Cohen, A Consumer’s Republic, 333.
17. Quoted in Halberstam, The Fifties, 231, 232.
18. Packard, The Hidden Persuaders, 172.
19. Quoted in “Admen Shouldn’t Try to Take Over Politics: Truman,” Advertising Age, September 22, 1948, 2.
20. Quoted in Packard, The Hidden Persuaders, 160.
21. Cohen, A Consumer’s Republic, 336.
22. Theodore H. White, The Making of the President 1960 (New York: Atheneum House, 1961), 312. See also W. J. Rorabaugh, The Real Making of the President: Kennedy, Nixon, and the 1960 Election (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2009). Television plays a key role in this account, but TV campaign advertising itself plays a small role in comparison to what would soon follow.
23. Robert Mann, Daisy Petals and Mushroom Clouds: LBJ, Barry Goldwater, and the Ad That Changed American Politics (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2011), 108.
24. Joe Klein, Politics Lost (New York: Broadway Books, 2006), 17.
25. All quoted in Mann, Daisy Petals, 111–113.
26. Joe McGinniss, The Selling of the President (New York: Penguin, 1988), xv, xxi, xxii. This book was originally published by Simon & Schuster in 1969.
27. There are numerous totals given the TV political spending in 1968. The standard figure immediately after the election was $60 million. See Malachi C. Topping and Lawrence W. Lichty, “Political Programs on National Television Networks: 1968,” Journal of Broadcasting 15, no. 2 (Spring 1971): 161. After review, we have elected to use the figure provided in the 1997 congressional research report that drew from research by the Federal Communications Commission on the subject: Joseph E. Cantor, Denis Steven Rutkus, and Kevin B. Greely, “Free and Reduced-Rate Time for Political Candidates,” Report prepared for the Congressional Research Service, July 7, 1997, 4–5.
28. “Study Shows Pols’ Ads Less Credible Than Product Ads,” Advertising Age, February 26, 1973, 10.
29. Bill Richards, “Sen. Mathias Re-Election Drive Opens,” Washington Post, February 3, 1974.
30. White, The Making of the President, 312.
31. Quoted in Halberstam, The Fifties, 231.
32. Quoted in Michael M. Franz, Paul B. Freedman, Kenneth M. Goldstein, and Travis N. Ridout, Campaign Advertising and American Democracy (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2008), 3.
33. “David Ogilvy’s Timeless Rules for Advertising and Marketing,” bighow.com, http://bighow.com/news/david-ogilvys-timeless-rules-for-advertising-and-marketing.
34. Robert Spero, The Duping of the American Voter (New York: Lippincott & Crowell, 1980), 4.
35. Claudia Caplan, “We Don’t Do Political Advertising—and for Good Reason: The Risks Outweigh the Rewards,” adage.com, October 29, 2012.
36. Quoted in Susan Krashinsky, “Veteran Ad Man Reflects on Election Ads’ Negativity,” theglobeandmail.com, November 11, 2012.
37. Although the trade publication Advertising Age notes that with the emergence of consultants to run the modern political campaign, most advertising agencies are not controlling campaigns like they do commercial accounts, there is still plenty of money to go around. See Elizabeth Wilner, “Toothpaste vs. Candidates: Why the Mad Men Approach Doesn’t Work in Politics,” Advertising Age, August 9, 2012.
38. Bob Jeffrey, “A Sense of What Can Be,” jwt.com, August 28, 2012.
39. Quoted in Andrew McGill, “Business Booming for Pittsburgh Ad Agency BrabenderCox,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, October 14, 2012.
40. Cited in Glenn W. Richardson Jr., Pulp Politics: How Political Advertising Tells the Stories of American Politics (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003), 125.
41. Thorstein Veblen, arguably the most original and greatest American economist of all time, was the first to grasp this fundamental change in capitalism, though many of course have followed in his wake. See Thorstein Veblen, Absentee Ownership and Business Enterprise in Recent Times (New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1964). The book, originally published in 1923, was Veblen’s final work.
42. See John Bellamy Foster, Robert W. McChesney, and R. Jamil Jonna, “Monopoly and Competition in Twenty-First Century Capitalism,” Monthly Review 62, no. 11 (April 2011): 1–39.
43. C. B. Macpherson, The Life and Times of Liberal Democracy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977), 89–90.
44. V. O. Key Jr., Politics, Parties, and Pressure Groups (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1955), chap. 19.
45. One of us was told this story by a former advertising professional at Reeves’s Ted Bates advertising agency. For somewhat different versions of the story, see Reed Hundt, Chairman, Federal Communications Commission, “The Children’s Emmy: An Award Worth Winning,” November 19, 1996; and Richard S. Tedlow, The Watson Dynasty (New York: HarperBusiness, 2003), 118.
46. Halberstam, The Fifties, 227.
47. William Greider, Who Will Tell the People: The Betrayal of American Democracy (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), 271. Greider, to his credit, is one of the few writers on this subject who made the strong link between political and commercial advertising.
48. Darrell M. West, Air Wars: Television Advertising in Election Campaigns, 1952–2008 (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2010), 89. For a smart examination of the importance of visuals for TV news coverage of election campaigns, see Maria Elizabeth Grabe and Erik Page Bucy, Image Bite Politics: News and the Visual Framing of Elections (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010).
49. Jerry Mander, “Privatization of Consciousness,” Monthly Review 64, no. 5 (October 2012): 31.
50. Ibid., 29.
51. For a fuller elaboration on these themes, see Hannah Holleman, Inger L. Stole, John Bellamy Foster, and Robert W. McChesney, “The Sales Effort and Monopoly Capital,” Monthly Review 60, no. 11 (April 2009).
52. Drew Weston, The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation (New York: PublicAffairs, 2007).
53. Quoted in Packard, The Hidden Persuaders, 166.
54. See Shanto Iyengar and Jennifer A. McGrady, Media Politics: A Citizen’s Guide (New York: Norton, 2007), chap. 6.
55. Stacia Mullaney, “Do Political Ads Work?” wlns.com, October 2012.
56. Glenn Greenwald, “Election 2012 and the Media: A Vast Rightwing Conspiracy of Stupid,” The Guardian, August 30, 2012.
57. Dan Eggen, “Both Sides Hate Financial Sector—in Ads,” washingtonpost.com, October 8, 2012.
58. Peter Baker, “Romney’s Foreign Policy Intentions Can Be Tough to Gauge,” New York Times, August 29, 2012.
59. Tim Madigan, “Texas Native Is Romney Campaign’s Top Ad Man,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, October 11, 2012.
60. Quoted in Andrew McMains, “Romney’s Guy: No Apologies,” adweek.com, November 20, 2012.
61. Quoted in Rebecca Greenfield, “Romney Hired Gun Claims He ‘Reinvented Political Advertising’ with His Losing Ads,” the atlanticwire.com, December 3, 2012.
62. Ted Brader, Campaigning for Hearts and Minds: How Emotional Appeals in Political Ads Work (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), 183.
63. Quoted in Daniel Slocum Hinerfeld, “How Political Ads Subtract; It’s Not the Negative Ads That Are Perverting Democracy. It’s the Deceptive Ones,” Washington Monthly, May 1990.
64. Greider, Who Will Tell the People, 274–276.
65. W. Lance Bennett, The Governing Crisis: Media, Money, and Marketing in American Elections, 2nd ed. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996), 151.
66. Jeremy W. Peters, “The New Stars in Republican Commercials Attacking Obama: Babies,” New York Times, September 29, 2012.
67. Ezra Klein, “Rick Perry Loves Science. Political Science,” Washington Post blog, September 16, 2011, http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/rick-perry-loves-science-political-science/2011/08/25/gIQAD27AXK_blog.html. See also Donald P. Green and Alan S. Gerber, Get Out the Voter: How to Increase Voter Turnout, 2nd ed. (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2008), 161.
68. John Sides, “The Most Important Ads of the Campaign Are Only Airing Now,” themonkeycage.org, November 1, 2012.
69. Sean Richey, “Random and Systematic Error in Voting in Presidential Elections,” Political Research Quarterly 20, no. 10 (2012): 1–13. Quotation from Lee Drutman, “Did Campaign Spending Buy Bush the 2000 and 2004 Elections?,” sunlightfoundation.com, October 1, 2012.
70. Quoted in Eli Pariser, The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You (New York: Penguin Press, 2011), 160.
71. Leonard Steinhorn, “The Selling of the President in a Converged Media Age,” in James A. Thurber and Candace J. Nelson, eds., Campaigns and Elections American Style (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2010), 154.
72. Matthew Creamer, “Obama Wins! . . . Ad Age’s Marketer of the Year,” Advertising Age, October 17, 2008, http://adage.com/article/moy-2008/obama-wins-ad-age-s-marketer-year/131810/.
73. Travis N. Ridout and Michael M. Franz, The Persuasive Power of Campaign Advertising (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2011), viii, 146, 149, 145.
74. Kate Kenski, Bruce Hardy, and Kathleen Hall Jamieson’s, The Obama Victory: How Media, Money, and Message Shaped the 2008 Election (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 267, 268, 284.
75. Julian Brookes, “Why the 2012 Election Will Be the Most Expensive Ever,” RollingStone.com, June 7, 2011.
76. West, Air Wars, 174.
77. Quoted in Mike Madden, “A Small Group of Savvy Political Operatives Will Control How Billions Will Be Spent in Next Year’s Election,” AdWeek, June 27, 2011.
78. The material in this paragraph all comes from Daniel Adler, “Political Ads: Overpriced, Inefficient, Essential,” RollingStone.com, August 14, 2012.
79. Carter Eskew, “Political Advertising Is Dangerous for Democracy,” washingtonpost.com, August 16, 2012.
80. Larry Bivins, “Campaigns Bombard Ad-Weary Wisconsinites,” greenbaypressgazette.com, October 29, 2012.
81. John G. Geer, In Defense of Negativity: Attack Ads in Presidential Campaigns (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), 36.
82. Research conducted by the Wisconsin Advertising Project, Political Science Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Special thanks to Katherine Cramer Walsh and Sarah Niebler.
83. Erika Franklin Fowler and Travis N. Ridout, “Advertising Trends in 2010,” The Forum 8, no. 4, art. 4 (2011): 11–13.
84. Quoted in Alina Selyukh, “Study of U.S. Campaign Ads Finds Growing Role of Outside Groups,” reuters.com. September 13, 2012.
85. Elizabeth Wilner, “Why Pushing a Politician Isn’t Like Selling Soap,” Advertising Age, October 1, 2012.
86. Donovan Slack, “RIP Positive Ads in 2012,” politico.com, November 4, 2012.
87. Kevin Landrigan, “New Hampshire Facing Onslaught of Campaign Ads, as Obama, Romney Spend $1M a Week,” Nashua Telegraph, August 10, 2012.
88. Ari Shapiro, “Colorado Springs Soaks in Triple the Political Ads,” www.capradio.org, September 25, 2012.
89. See David Mark, Going Dirty: The Art of Negative Campaigning (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006).
90. Marc Caputo, “UM Professor Studies the Goldilocks Spot for Negative Ads,” miamihearld.com, October 9, 2012.
91. Westen, The Political Brain, 435–436.
92. Jessica Wehrman, “Despite Nastiness of Political Ads, Many Gave Substance,” Daytona Daily News, October 6, 2012.
93. Quoted in Pauline Arrillaga, “The Mean Season: Negativity in Election 2012,” heraldnet.com, October 22, 2012.
94. Drew Westen, “Why Attack Ads? Because They Work,” latimes.com, February 19, 2012.
95. Quoted in Belinda Young, “Iowans Can’t Avoid Political Ads on TV,” kcrg.com, October 21, 2012.
96. Rob Christensen, “Attack Ads Exhausting, Effective,” newsobserver.com, October 28, 2012.
97. Rick Perlstein, “Exclusive: Lee Atwater’s Infamous 1981 Interview on the Southern Strategy,” thenation.com, November 13, 2012.
98. Quoted in West, Air Wars, 3.
99. Quoted in Bernard Weinraub, “Campaign Trail: A Beloved Mug Shot for the Bush Forces,” New York Times, October 3, 1988.
100. One of us had a relative who was a political junkie and an avid right-wing Republican. He defended the Horton ads as not being racist by stating, “Hell, no one even knew Horton was a god-damned [insert n-word here] until the Democrats made such a stink about it.”
101. Quoted in Ridout and Franz, The Persuasive Power of Campaign Advertising, 2.
102. Kate Phillips, “The Last-Minute, Anti-Obama Ad Blitz,” New York Times, November 3, 2008.
103. Paul Krugman, “The Post-Truth Campaign,” New York Times, December 22, 2011.
104. Craig Trudell, “Fiat Says Jeep Output May Return to China as Demand Rises,” Bloomberg News, October 22, 2012; “ABC Toledo: Auto Workers Slam Romney’s False Jeep Claim,” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnY2qbE4d2w.
105. Gualberto Ranieri, “Jeep in China,” www.chryslerllc.com, October 25, 2012, http://blog.chryslerllc.com/blog.do?id=1932&p=entry.
106. Quoted in John Nichols, “Yes, Romney’s a Liar, but This Is Getting Ridiculous,” The Nation, October 30, 2012.
107. Larry J. Sabato and Glenn R. Simpson, Dirty Little Secrets: The Persistence of Corruption in American Politics (New York: Times Books, 1996), 253.
108. Michael W. Traugott and Mee-Eun Kang, “Push Polls as Negative Persuasive Strategies,” in Paul J. Lavrakas and Michael W. Traugott, eds., Election Polls, the News Media, and Democracy (New York: Chatham House, 2000), 283.
109. Robert H. Swansbrough, Test by Fire: The War Presidency of George W. Bush (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 47.
110. Richard H. Davis, “Anatomy of a Smear Campaign,” Boston Globe, March 21, 2004, http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/03/21/the_anatomy_of_a_smear_campaign/.
111. Traugott and Kang, “Push Polls,” 290–291.
112. Richardson, Pulp Politics, 138.
113. Ridout and Franz, The Persuasive Power of Campaign Advertising, 17.
114. Franz et al., Campaign Advertising, 142.
115. Wilner, “Why Pushing a Politician Isn’t Like Selling Soap,”
116. Andy Ellenthal, “7 Political Ad Tactics Every Marketer Should Know,” imediaconnection.com, August 15, 2012.
117. Westen, The Political Brain, 346.
118. Bruce Ackerman, The Decline and Fall of the American Republic (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2010), 126.
119. Quoted in Alina Selukh, “Ads Flood Last Weeks of Campaign—and So Does Negativity,” chicagotribune.com, September 27, 2012.
120. Dan Gillmor, “A Strategy for Filtering America’s Toxic Sludge of Political Advertising,” presstv.com, August 19, 2012.
121. Stephen Ansolabehere and Shanto Iyengar, Going Negative: How Political Advertisements Shrink and Polarize the Electorate (New York: Free Press, 1995), 11–12.
122. Fowler and Ridout, “Advertising Trends in 2010,” 4.
123. Quoted in Pam Rooks, “Society Watch: Is It American Voters or American Politicians Who Need to Wake Up?” Politicalfiber.com, October 4, 2012.
1. Ned Martel, “As Iowa Caucuses Near, TV Stations See Ad Buys Boom After Long Lull,” Washington Post, December 31, 2011.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.; D. M. Levine, “Shot in Arm Expected for 2012 Political Ad Spend: MediaVest Sees a 30% Jump Possible in Key States,” AdWeek, December 27, 2011.
4. Laura Baum, “Presidential Ad War Tops 1M Airings,” Wesleyan Media Project, November 2, 2012.
5. Charles McChesney, “What Does All That Campaign Spending Get Spent On?” Syracuse.com, November 12, 2012.
6. Walt Whitman, “Election Day, November 1884,” first published in the 1891–1892 edition of Leaves of Grass, http://whitmanarchive.org/criticism/reviews/complete_poems/anc.00131.html; Matt Taibbi, “How the Hype Became Bigger Than the Presidential Election: Blame the Media for Making Whole Generations Hate the Process,” Rolling Stone, October 9, 2012.
7. Ibid.
8. Ben Fox, “E. W. Scripps Posts Profit on Political Ad Spend,” MarketWatch, November. 9, 2012.
9. “Political Boon Leads Gray to Up Estimates,” tvnewscheck.com, November 8, 2012.
10. Wayne Friedman, “Election Money Fuels Big Gains for Scripps,” mediapost.com, November 9, 2012.
11. Andy Fixmer, “CBS Profit Climbs 16% as Political Advertising Boosts Radio, TV,” Bloomberg, November 8, 2012.
12. Ryan Sharrow, “Sinclair Broadcast Earnings Rise in 3Q on Political Spending,” Baltimore Business Journal, November 1, 2012.
13. Associated Press, “Politics Ads, Olympics Lift Belo 3Q Profit 81 Pct,” October 30, 2012.
14. Scott Eymer, “Don’t Hate Political Advertising—Profit from It,” Seeking Alpha, September 12, 2012. Eymer, a former broadcaster, writes at http://seekingalpha.com.
15. Bill Moyers and Bernard Weisberger, “Money in Politics: Where’s the Outrage?,” Huffington Post, August 30, 2012.
16. See Robert W. McChesney, Telecommunications, Mass Media, and Democracy: The Battle for the Control of U.S. Broadcasting, 1928–1935 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993).
17. Diana Mankowski and Raissa Jose, “Flashback: The 70th Anniversary of FDR’s Fireside Chats,” Museum of Broadcast History, http://www.museum.tv/exhibitionssection.php?page=79.
18. Joseph E. Cantor, Denis Steven Rutkus, and Kevin B. Greely, “Free and Reduced-Rate Time for Political Candidates,” report prepared for the Congressional Research Service, July 7, 1997, 6.
19. This is a preliminary calculation and is therefore a conservative estimate. Andrew Vanacore, “Political Ads Called ‘Gigantic Band-Aid’ for TV Stations’ Bottom Lines,” Associated Press dispatch, October 29, 2010, http://cnsnews.com/news/article/political-ads-called-gigantic-band-aid-t.
20. Quoted in Jeff Cohen, “TV Industry Wields Power in D.C.,” Baltimore Sun, May 4, 1997.
21. “Time Is Right to Buy Media Stocks Like TWX, DIS, NWS, CMCSA,” InvestorPlace, June 20, 2011, http://www.investorplace.com/46016/twx-nws-dis-cmcsa-cbs-via-sbgi/.
22. Quoted in Catalina Camia, “TV Stations Set to Make Money from 2012 Political Ads,” USA Today, June 22, 2011.
23. Quoted in Anthony Noto, “For Media M&A, Christmas Comes Early,” Mergers & Acquisitions, July 13, 2011, http://www.themiddlemarket.com/news/qa_media_ma_poised_for_a_pickup-221486–1.html.
24. Tim Dickinson, “Guess Who’s Profiting Most from Super PACS?” RollingStone.com, August 6, 2012.
25. Quoted in Laura Baum, “2012 Shatters 2004 and 2008 Record for Total Ads Aired,” mediaproject .wesleyan.edu, October 24, 2012.
26. Quoted in Belinda Yeung, “Iowans Can’t Avoid Political Ads on TV,” kcrg.com, October 21, 2012.
27. John Shelton, “The 2012 Election Cycle Is Already Costing You Money,” Advertising Age, August 7, 2012.
28. Darrell M. West, “Communications Lessons from the 2012 Presidential Election,” UpFront analysis, the Brookings Institution, November 6, 2012.
29. Elizabeth Wilner, “Equal Time for Politicians May Mean Less Ad Time for Other Marketers,” Advertising Age, August 23, 2012.
30. Marino Eccher, “Political TV Ad Blitz Dominates Airwaves,” Jamestown (North Dakota) Sun, September 12, 2012.
31. Quoted in Jack Messmer, “Sinclair’s Political Shooting Through the Roof,” TVNewsCheck.com, August 1, 2012.
32. Quoted in Dan Eggen, “Observers Say Amount Spent on Federal Races Could Hit $6 Billion,” Monterey (California) Herald, September 2, 2012.
33. Quoted in Erin Ailworth, “Election Spending on Local TV Surges,” Boston Globe, September 23, 2012.
34. Elizabeth Wilner, “Ad Avalanche: 43,000 Political Spots a Day Until November,” Advertising Age, September 13, 2012.
35. Felipe Cabrera and Victor Luckerson, “The Numbers: What Fueled the Priciest Election in U.S. History,” Time, November 18, 2012; “Florida: Congressional Races in 2012,” opensecrets.org (accessed November 20, 2012).
36. Paul Farhi, “Dilemma for D.C. Stations: So Many Political Ads, So Little Airtime,” washingtonpost.com, October 22, 2012.
37. Luke Rosiak, “In Pursuit of Coveted Independents, Campaign Ads Invade Local TV News,” Washington Times, September 2, 2012.
38. Jed Lewison, “22 Consecutive Political Ads During Half-Hour Columbus, Ohio, Newscast,” dailykos.com, November 1, 2012.
39. Farhi, “Dilemma for D.C. Stations.”
40. Ted Johnson, “TV Biz Savors Windfall from Political Ads,” variety.com, October 31, 2012.
41. Wilner, “Ad Avalanche.”
42. Luke Rosiak, “Political-Ad Tsunami Swamps Southeast Virginia,” Washington Times, September 11, 2012.
43. Barack Obama, “Transcript of President Obama’s Acceptance Speech at the Democratic National Convention, as Delivered,” Federal News Service, September 6, 2012.
44. Alex Jackson,” Maryland Voters Agree, They’re Sick of Ads,” Capital Gazette, November 7, 2012.
45. Ibid.
46. Ken Tingley, “Political Ads on TV Are a Bad Dream,” poststar.com, October 9, 2012.
47. Mike Plews, “Omaha Pharmacists Take on Political Advertising,” wowt.com, November 1, 2012.
48. “Cameron v Letterman: A Zero-Sum Equation,” guardian.co.uk, September 27, 2012; James Kirkup, “David Cameron Braves David Letterman’s US Chat Show—and Leaves Red-Faced,” telegraph.co.uk, September 26, 2012.
49. Noto, “For Media M&A.”
50. Derek Turner, the research director at Free Press, provided us with the data for this paragraph.
51. Quoted in Michael Beckel, “Big Business Prefers GOP Over Democratic Super PACs,” Center for Public Integrity, July 25, 2012.
52. James Curran, Shanto Iyengar, Anker Brink Lund, and Inka Salovaara-Moring, “Media System, Public Knowledge, and Democracy: A Comparative Study,” European Journal of Communication 24, no. 1 (2009): 5–26.
53. Stephen Cushion, The Democratic Value of News: Why Public Service Media Matters (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).
54. Lyndon B. Johnson, “Remarks in the Capitol Rotunda at the Signing of the Voting Rights Act,” August 6, 1965, in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1965, vol. 2 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1966), entry 394, 811–815. In his speech, Johnson said, “Millions of Americans are denied the right to vote because of their color. This law will ensure them the right to vote. The wrong is one which no American, in his heart, can justify. The right is one which no American, true to our principles, can deny.”
55. Robert Caro, The Passage of Power (New York: Knopf, 2012).
56. Harold Wilson, speech at Labour Party conference, October 1, 1963, Labour Party Annual Conference Report (London: Labour Party, 1963), 139–140.
57. Lyndon Johnson, “Remarks upon Signing the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, November 7, 1967,” University of California at Santa Barbara (Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley) American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=28532.
58. Bill Moyers, “Remarks at PBS Annual Meeting,” May 18, 2006. A version of the remarks can be found at http://www.pbs.org/moyers/faithandreason/pbsaddress.html.
59. Ibid.
60. See Carnegie Commission on Public Television, Public Television: A Program for Action (New York: Harper & Row, 1967).
61. Quoted in Roger Smith, “Public Broadcasting as State Television,” www.tompaine.com, March 11, 2003.
62. James Reston, “A Base for a Milestone: Carnegie Report, Like Land-Grant Act of 1862, May Greatly Influence U.S. Life,” New York Times, January 26, 1967.
63. Carnegie Commission, Public Television, 8.
64. Ibid.; Nichols, McChesney interviews with Moyers. Nichols and McChesney have interviewed Moyers frequently over the years. The conversation cited here took place March 26, 2010, in New York.
65. Aaron Barnhart, “In Public TV We Trust,” Electronic Media, July 22, 2002, 10.
66. Moyers, “Remarks at PBS Annual Meeting.”
67. Dennis Hevesi, “Wilbur Mills, Long a Power in Congress, Is Dead at 82,” New York Times, May 3, 1992.
68. Moyers, “Remarks at PBS Annual Meeting.”
69. Jack Gould, “News Laboratory Experiences Some Birth Pains,” New York Times, November 3, 1967.
70. Laura R. Linder, Public Access Television (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1999), 2.
71. Jack Gould, “Lack of Funds May Shut Down Hoving’s Broadcast Improvers,” New York Times, February 21, 1969.
72. Grace Glueck, “The Total Involvement of Thomas Hoving,” New York Times, December 8, 1968.
73. Louise Sweeney, “Congress Urged to Pay Off on Public-Broadcasting Pledge,” Christian Science Monitor, July 16, 1968.
74. National Citizens Committee for Public Broadcasting, The State of Public Broadcasting (New York: National Citizens Committee for Public Broadcasting, July 1968).
75. “. . . Soap Suds and Dog Food,” Boston Globe, October 14, 1968.
76. Lawrence Laurent, “Hoving’s Forthright Blast Will Make Powerful Enemies,” Washington Post, October 1, 1968.
77. “. . . Soap Suds and Dog Food.”
78. “TV and the Voter,” Christian Science Monitor, October 3, 1968.
79. Jack Gould, “A Gadfly Buzzing the Status Quo,” New York Times, October 27, 1968.
80. Jerry Landay, “Failing the Perception Test,” Current, June 2001; David Hatch, “PBS Decision Irks Tauzin,” Electronic Media, May 15, 2000, 4.
81. Quotes from Lawrence Jarvik, PBS: Behind the Screen (Rocklin, CA: Forum, 1997), back cover.
82. Quoted in “ANA ’84: Washington Update, Cost Concerns,” Broadcasting, November 19, 1984, 66.
83. Tom McCourt, Conflicting Communication Interests in America: The Case of National Public Radio (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1999), 2–3; William F. Buckley, On the Firing Line: The Public Life of Our Public Figures (New York: Random House, 1989).
84. Howard Kurtz, “McCain Wants Free Airtime for Candidates; Is Media Fair to Bush on Corporate Scandals?,” CNN Reliable Sources, July 6, 2002.
85. Ibid.
86. Some indication of the power of the commercial broadcasting lobby is that since 1934 there have been well over 100,000 license renewals but only four times has a broadcaster had its renewal denied because it failed to meet its public interest programming obligation. The odds are less than 4/1,000 of 1 percent that a broadcaster might lose its license. In short, it is a hollow threat, and broadcasters know they can do exactly as they please to maximize returns. See Steven Waldman and the Working Group on Information Needs of Communities, The Information Needs of Communities: The Changing Media Landscape in a Broadband Age (Washington, DC: Federal Communications Commission, June 2011), 26.
87. Waldman et al., The Information Needs of Communities, 295–296.
88. Quoted in Cantor et al., “Free and Reduced-Rate Time,” 21.
89. Robert W. McChesney interview with William Kennard, February 2001.
90. Jeff Cohen, “TV Industry Wields Power in D.C.,” Baltimore Sun, May 4, 1997.
91. McChesney interview with Kennard.
92. Ibid.
93. Ibid.
94. Quoted in Todd Shields, “Broadcasters Fight Plan to Post Names of Political Ad Buyers on Web,” washingtonpost.com, March 18, 2012.
95. Todd Shields, “Unmasking the Going Rate for Attack Ads,” Bloomberg Businessweek, March 26–April 1, 2012, 21–32.
96. Jake Harper, “FCC Database Misses Huge Chunk of Ads,” sunlightfoundation.com, October 3, 2012.
97. Katy Bachman, “Broadcasters Lose Attempt to Stay Political File Disclosure Rules,” adweek.com, July 27, 2012.
98. Dan Gillmor, “A Strategy for Filtering America’s Toxic Sludge of Political Advertising,” guardian .co.uk, August 18, 2012.
99. For the Berg quotation and a discussion of these cases, see Timothy Karr, Money, News, and Deception in Denver (Washington, DC: Free Press, 2012), 8–9.
100. Bill Knight, “Super PACs Spent Big in Peoria,” thecommunityword.com, September 4, 2012.
101. Karr, Money, News, and Deception, 5.
102. Knight, “Super PACS Spent Big.”
103. Quoted in James Q. Lynch, “Broadcasters Urged to Demand Accuracy, Reject Deceptive Political Ads,” Quad-City (Iowa–Illinois) Times, qctimes.org, September 17, 2012.
104. Confidential conversation between public interest advocate and Robert W. McChesney, July 2012.
105. Quoted in Andy Kroll, “What the FEC?,” motherjones.com, April 18, 2011, http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/04/fec-cazayoux-citizens-united.
106. Quoted in Charles Babcock, “Secret Election Financing Surges with Evasion of IRS Scrutiny,” bloomberg.com, June 16, 2011.
107. Comment on PBS Newshour, August 10, 2012.
108. Quoted in Tim Karr, Left in the Dark: Local Election Coverage in the Age of Big-Money Politics (Washington, DC: Free Press, September 2012), 6.
109. Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Dirty Politics: Deception, Distraction, and Democracy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 279.
110. Martin Kaplan, Ken Goldstein, and Matthew Hale, “Local News Coverage of the 2004 Campaigns: An Analysis of Nightly Broadcasts in 11 Markets” Lear Center Local News Archive, February 15, 2005, 19–20, http://www.localnewsarchive.org/pdf/LCLNAFinal2004.pdf. Moreover, control over the presidential debates has been taken away from the League of Women Voters by the two major parties, and the capacity for debates to work for citizens rather than politicians has been lessened accordingly. See George Farah, No Debate: How the Republican and Democratic Parties Secretly Control the Presidential Debates (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2004).
111. John Nichols interview of Ed Garvey, November 2010.
112. Classic research includes Daniel Halin, “Sound Bite News: Television News Coverage of Elections, 1968–88,” Journal of Communication 42, no. 2 (1991): 5–24; Erik P. Bucy and Maria Elizabeth Grabe, “Taking Television Seriously: A Sound and Image Bite Analysis of Presidential Campaign Coverage, 1992–2004,” Journal of Communication 57, no. 4 (2007): 652–675; and Kaplan et al., “Local News Coverage.”
113. Thomas E. Patterson, The Vanishing Voter: Public Involvement in an Age of Uncertainty (New York: Vintage Books, 2003), 90.
114. Leonard Downie Jr. and Robert G. Kaiser, The News About the News: American Journalism in Peril (New York: Knopf, 2002), 171.
115. The research is discussed in Waldman et al., The Information Needs of Communities, 84–85.
116. Michael Schudson, The Power of News (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), 215.
117. The research is discussed in Waldman et al., The Information Needs of Communities, 84–85.
118. Karr, Left in the Dark, 12.
119. Editorial, “Tale of the Tape . . . So Far,” Columbia Journalism Review, September/October 2012.
120. Elizabeth Wilner, “Why Pushing a Politician Isn’t Like Pushing Soap,” Advertising Age, October 1, 2012. See also Elizabeth Wilner, “What Big Bird Teaches Us About Political Advertising,” Advertising Age, October 11, 2012.
121. Quoted in Daniel Adler, “Political Ads: Overpriced, Inefficient, Essential,” RollingStone.com, August 14, 2012.
122. Andria Krewson, “Big Ad Spending, Little Press Scrutiny,” cjr.org, July 30, 2012.
123. Karr, Left in the Dark.
124. Karr, Money, News, and Deception, 3.
125. Edward Wasserman, “TV ‘Watchdogs’ Quiet as Political Ad Cash Rolls In,” Miami Herald, October 8, 2012.
126. Quoted in Dickinson, “Guess Who’s Profiting.”
127. “Little Public Awareness of Outside Campaign Spending Boom,” Pew Research Center for People and the Press, www.people-press.org, August 2, 2012.
128. Jamieson, Dirty Politics, especially Appendix II.
129. Quoted in Karr, Money, News, and Deception, 6.
130. Darrell M. West, Air Wars: Television Advertising in American Elections, 1952–2008 (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2010), 94–95.
131. Quoted in “In Election’s Closing Days, Ad Campaign Urges Battleground Stations to Reject Deceptive Outside Group Ads and Increase On-Air and Online Fact Checking,” Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, October 31, 2012.
132. Quoted in Jason Salzman, “Checking the Facts in Political Ads,” Huffington Post, August 27, 2012.
133. Karr, Money, News, and Deception, 6.
134. Quoted in Scott Finn, “Should TV Stations Refuse to Air Political Ads That Make False Claims?,” npr.org, October 3, 2012.
135. Gillmor, “A Strategy.”
136. Moyers and Weisberger, “Money in Politics.”
137. Marty Kaplan, “How to Ignore the Campaign,” Huffington Post, August 31, 2012.
138. “Yes, Expect Record 2012 Political Spending,” Media Life, June 23, 2011, http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman2/publish/AskaMediaLifeexpert/Yes-expect-record-2012-political-spending.asp.
139. Katy Bachman, “Digital Losing Out on Campaign Ad Billions,” AdWeek, June 22, 2011, http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/digital-losing-out-campaign-ad-billions-132676.
140. Eli Pariser, The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You (New York: Penguin Press, 2011), 154.
141. Quoted in Bachman, “Digital Losing Out.”
142. Gerald F. Seib, “Political Perceptions: Ad Burnout Ahead?,” wsj.com, September 11, 2012.
143. Chris Kromm, “Did Big Money Really Lose This Election? Hardly,” truth-out.org, November 12, 2012.
1. Quoted in Jeremy W. Peters, “A Finger Slips, and the Bachmann Camp Pounces,” New York Times, November 13, 2011.
2. Quoted in ibid.
3. Nina Mandell, “Bachmann’s Campaign Manager Calls CBS Exec ‘a Piece of Sh—’ After Debate,” New York Daily News, November 14, 2011.
4. Herbert J. Gans, Democracy and the News (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 54.
5. Mike Miller, “Born Under a Cloud of War,” Capital Times, September 3, 2009; John Nichols, “Neglecting Candidates with Whom You Disagree Is Ultimate Disrespect for Democracy,” Capital Times, September 14, 2010. The Capital Times newspaper, for which Nichols has written for two decades, was founded by William T. Evjue, a crusading reformer, in 1917. It was Evjue who developed the “Let the people have the truth” motto.
6. John Nichols, “A New Age for Newspapers: Diversity of Voices, Competition, and the Internet,” testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, U.S. House of Representatives, April 21, 2009, http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/pdf/Nichols090421.pdf.
7. The material in this paragraph and the material that is unattributed otherwise in the next few paragraphs come from Robert W. McChesney and John Nichols, The Death and Life of American Journalism: The Media Revolution That Will Begin the World Again (New York: Nation Books, 2011).
8. Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (New York: Penguin, 2003), 215, 604.
9. It also meant that dissident movements found it far easier to launch weeklies and distribute them. See Bob Ostertag, People’s Movements: The Journalism of Social Justice Movements (Boston: Beacon Press, 2006).
10. See John Nichols, The “S” Word: A Short History of an American Tradition, Socialism (New York: Verso, 2011). See also Robin Blackburn, An Unfinished Revolution: Karl Marx and Abraham Lincoln (New York: Verso, 2011).
11. Quoted in James M. Lundberg, “Nathaniel Hawthorne, Party Hack: Why Did the Famous Novelist Agree to Write a Campaign Biography for an Infamously Bad President?,” Slate, September 14, 2012.
12. Richard L. Kaplan, Politics and the American Press: The Rise of Objectivity, 1865–1920 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 42.
13. Michael Schudson, quoted in Natalie Jomini Stroud, Niche News: The Politics of News Choice (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 174.
14. Quoted in Charles Lewis, The Buying of the President 2000 (New York: Avon Books, 2000), 343.
15. Kaplan, Politics and the American Press, 24.
16. Ibid., 24, 149.
17. Ibid., 77, 73.
18. Quoted in ibid., 123–124.
19. For the classic treatment, see Upton Sinclair, The Brass Check (Rpt., Urbana: University of Illinois Press, [1919] 2003).
20. Robert M. La Follette, The Political Philosophy of Robert M. La Follette, comp. by Ellen Torelle (Madison, WI: Robert M. La Follette Co., 1920), 345–359.
21. Ibid, 349.
22. “History and Mission,” The Progressive, http://www.progressive.org/mission.
23. Theodore Roosevelt, “The Man with the Muck Rake,” speech delivered in Washington, DC, April 14, 1906, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/primary-resources/tr-muckrake/.
24. For a good look at this period and crisis, see Amy Reynolds and Gary Hicks, Prophets of the Fourth Estate: Broadsides by Press Critics of the Progressive Era (Los Angeles: Litwin Books, 2011).
25. Cited in Kaplan, Politics and the American Press, 166.
26. See Daniel C. S. Stoltzfus, Freedom from Advertising: E. W. Scripps’s Chicago Experiment (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2007).
27. Quoted in Kaplan, Politics and the American Press, 126.
28. McCarthyism in the 1950s went a long way toward weeding out and intimidating those journalists who might take an adversarial stance toward management and were prone toward critical examinations of the existing power structure. See Edward Alwood, Dark Days in the Newsroom: McCarthyism Aimed at the Press (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2007).
29. Unsigned obituary, “Hazel Brannon Smith, 80, Editor Who Crusaded for Civil Rights,” New York Times, May 16, 1994.
30. D. D. Guttenplan, American Radical: The Life and Times of I. F. Stone (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009).
31. Paul Krugman, “The Centrist Cop-Out,” New York Times, July 29, 2011.
32. Ari Melber, “Why Fact-Checking Has Taken Root in This Year’s Election,” pbs.org, September 5, 2012.
33. W. Lance Bennett, “Press-Government Relations in a Changing Media Environment,” in Kate Kenski and Kathleen Hall Jamieson, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Political Communication (New York: Oxford University Press, forthcoming).
34. Michael D. Shear, “Democrats Crying Foul Over a New Romney Ad,” New York Times, November 23, 2011.
35. Greg Sargent, “Romney Camp: Misrepresenting Opponent’s Words Is Completely Fair Game,” Washington Post, November 22, 2011.
36. Ros Krasny, “New Mitt Romney Attack Ad Called ‘Deceitful’ by Obama Campaign,” Reuters, November 22, 2011.
37. Sargent, “Romney Camp.”
38. Adolph S. Ochs, “Business Announcement,” New York Times, August 19, 1896.
39. See Eugene Secunda and Terence P. Moran, Selling War to America: From the Spanish American War to the Global War on Terror (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2007); Norman Solomon, War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2005).
40. John Nichols, ed., Against the Beast: A Documentary History of American Opposition to Empire (New York: Nation Books, 2004), 93–136.
41. Quoted in ibid., 110.
42. Eli Pariser, The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You (New York: Penguin Press, 2011), 50. See Lippmann’s two masterpieces on journalism written in 1919 and 1920 in Walter Lippmann, Liberty and the News (Rpt., Mineola, NY: Dover, 2010). The second piece in the book, besides “Liberty and the News,” is Lippmann’s piece with Charles Merz, “A Test of the News,” which appeared in the New Republic in August 1920. For a lengthy treatment of Lippmann’s writings on journalism and democracy, see Robert W. McChesney, “That Was Now and This Is Then: Walter Lippmann and the Crisis of Journalism,” in Robert W. McChesney and Victor Pickard, eds., Will the Last Reporter Please Turn Out the Lights: The Collapse of Journalism and What Can Be Done to Fix It (New York: New Press, 2011), 151–161.
43. Shanto Iyengar and Donald R. Kinder, News That Matters: Television and Public Opinion, updated ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010), 135–138.
44. Greg Kaufmann, “This Week in Poverty,” The Nation, http://www.thenation.com/blogs/greg-kaufmann.
45. Thomas E. Patterson, The Vanishing Voter: Public Involvement in an Age of Uncertainty (New York: Vintage Books, 2003), 89–90.
46. W. Lance Bennett, News: The Politics of Illusion (New York: Longman, 1983), 92, 60.
47. Joseph N. Cappella and Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Spiral of Cynicism: The Press and the Public Good (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997). Herbert Gans suggested the news media are not the independent variable in the creation of cynicism, but rather they mostly reinforce a rational response to how the political system operates. Either way, the news media are not actively battling cynicism and depoliticization. See Herbert J. Gans, Democracy and the News (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 54.
48. We do not wish to exaggerate this phenomenon. Like their nineteenth-century predecessors, the dissident movements of the 1960s required their own media to grow and be effective. See John McMillian, Smoking Typewriters: The Sixties Underground Press and the Rise of Alternative Media in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011); and Peter Richardson, A Bomb in Every Issue: How the Short, Unruly Life of Ramparts Magazine Changed America (New York: New Press, 2009).
49. Jeff Cohen, “Mainstream Reporters: Too Close to the Field and Teams to Get the Debt Story,” CommonDreams, July 30, 2011, http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/07/30.
50. See John R. MacArthur, The Selling of “Free Trade”: NAFTA, Washington, and the Subversion of American Democracy (New York: Hill and Wang, 2000); and Howard Kurtz, The Fortune Tellers: Inside Wall Street’s Game of Money, Media, and Manipulation (New York: Free Press, 2000).
51. See Jeffrey E. Cohen, The Presidency in the Era of 24-Hour News (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008), 14. See also the comments of USA Today reporter Richard Benedetto in Elizabeth A. Skewes, Message Control: How News Is Made on the Presidential Campaign Trail (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007), 51.
52. Thomas E. Patterson, Out of Order (New York: Vintage Books, 1994), 82.
53. Timothy Crouse, The Boys on the Bus (New York: Random House, 1973), 39. For a brilliant alternative interpretation of the1972 campaign, see Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail ’72 (New York: Grand Central, 1973).
54. Mike Gravel and David Eisenbach, The Kingmakers: How the Media Threatens Our Security and Our Democracy (Beverly Hills, CA: Phoenix Books, 2008), 137.
55. Cohen has routinely used the “money primary” concept in his talks over the years, and it seems appropriate to acknowledge his coinage of the term.
56. See, for example, Kenneth Dautrich and Thomas H. Hartley, How the News Media Fail American Voters: Causes, Consequences, and Remedies (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999); Jan Pons Vermeer, ed., Campaigns in the News: Mass Media and Congressional Elections (New York: Greenwood Press, 1987); Robert Shogan, Bad News: Where the Press Goes Wrong in the Making of the President (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2001); and S. Robert Lichter and Richard E. Noyes, Good Intentions Make Bad News: Why Americans Hate Campaign Journalism (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1996). For books that go beyond campaigns to general political news but make related arguments, see Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Paul Waldman, The Press Effect: Politicians, Journalists, and the Stories That Shape the Political World (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003); Jay Rosen, What Are Journalists For? (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999); and W. Lance Bennett, Regina G. Lawrence, and Steven Livingstone, When the Press Fails: Political Power and the News Media from Iraq to Katrina (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007).
57. Quoted in Patterson, Out of Order, 26.
58. Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Joseph N. Cappella, Echo Chamber: Rush Limbaugh and the Conservative Media Establishment (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), xi.
59. For a nice discussion of this, see Matthew Robert Kerbel, Edited for Television: CNN, ABC, and American Presidential Elections, 2nd ed. (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998), 201; and Skewes, Message Control, 13.
60. See Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Everything You Think You Know about Politics . . . and Why You’re Wrong (New York: Basic Books, 2000), chap. 24.
61. Michael Schudson, The Power of News (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), 214–215.
62. Jeffrey Gale, “Bullshit!”: The Media as Power Brokers in Presidential Elections (Palm Springs, CA: Bold Hawk Press, 1988).
63. John Nichols, “Go-Along Media Ignoring Kucinich,” Capital Times, December 13, 2003.
64. Jim Naureckas, “The Dean Surge: Fear and Loathing in Campaign Punditry,” Extra!, October 2003; Mark Shields, “Time for Apologies,” CNNPolitics, April 12, 2004, http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/04/12/iraq.reconsidered/index.html.
65. Paul Harris, “Ron Paul Exposes Media Bias,” The Guardian, August 16, 2011, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/aug/16/ron-paul-media-bias.
66. Clay Barbour, “Also-Rans Caught in Political Catch-22,” Wisconsin State Journal, August 10, 2012.
67. See John Nichols and Robert W. McChesney, Tragedy and Farce: How the American Media Sell Wars, Spin Elections, and Destroy Democracy (New York: New Press, 2006), for a more detailed discussion of these issues.
68. Lucas Shaw, “MSNBC Bids Adieu to Cenk Uygur,” Reuters, July 20, 2011; Mark Joyella, “MSNBC Calls Cenk Uygur’s Version of Departure ‘Completely Baseless,’” Mediaite, July 21, 2011.
69. Brian Stelter, “Sharpton Appears to Win Anchor Spot on MSNBC,” New York Times, July 21, 2011.
70. Andrew Kirell, “Fox & MSNBC Became More Extreme as Election Day Neared,” Mediaite, November 19, 2012.
71. Skewes, Message Control, 13.
72. See Stephen J. Farnsworth and S. Robert Lichter, The Nightly News Nightmare: Media Coverage of U.S. Presidential Elections, 1988–2008 (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2011), 45–52.
73. Conor Friedersdorf, “Is Horse-Race Coverage Killing Mitt Romney,” nationaljournal.com, September 28, 2012.
74. Leonard Downie Jr. and Robert G. Kaiser, The News About the News: American Journalism in Peril (New York: Knopf, 2002), 231.
75. Patterson, Out of Order, 82.
76. James Fallows, Breaking the News: How the Media Undermine American Democracy (New York: Pantheon, 1996), 170–181.
77. Patterson, Out of Order, 20–23.
78. Travis N. Ridout and Michael M. Franz, The Persuasive Power of Campaign Advertising (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2011), 129.
79. Joe McGinniss, The Selling of the President 1968 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1970), 59.
80. Kerbel, Edited for Television, 203–204.
1. Andrew Beaujon, “Las Vegas, Orlando, Pittsburgh Saw Most Political Ads Last Week,” Poynter Institute, October 17, 2012, www.poynter.org.
2. Brendan Sasso, “Local Television Stations in Swing-States Cash In on Deluge of Political Ads,” The Hill, October 28, 2012.
3. Jeremy W. Peters, “73,000 Political Ads Test Even a City of Excess,” New York Times, October 15, 2012.
4. Ibid.
5. Campbell Robertson, “New Orleans Struggles with Latest Storm, Newspaper Layoffs,” New York Times, June 12, 2012.
6. For a thorough update of the crisis in journalism through 2012, see Robert W. McChesney, Digital Disconnect: How Capitalism Is Turning the Internet Against Democracy (New York: New Press, 2013), chap. 6.
7. See James O’Shea, The Deal from Hell: How Moguls and Wall Street Plundered Great American Newspapers (New York: PublicAffairs, 2011).
8. Steven Waldman and the Working Group on Information Needs of Communities, The Information Needs of Communities: The Changing Media Landscape in a Broadband Age (Washington, DC: Federal Communications Commission, June 2011), 5.
9. For chilling detail, see ibid., 44–45.
10. This point and a few of the others that follow are drawn from McChesney, Digital Disconnect, chap. 6.
11. Matthew Rothschild, “Gov. Walker Uses ‘Vanna White’ Veto to Rob New Public Sector Workers,” The Progressive Blog, July 6, 2011, http://www.progressive.org/wx070611.html.
12. Waldman et al., The Information Needs of Communities, 12, 90, 46, 52.
13. For an accurate accounting of newspaper closures and cutbacks, we rely on two excellent Web sites: http://newspaperdeathwatch.com/; and http://newspaperlayoffs.com/. They are constantly updated, and they put the lie to claims that the industry has stabilized.
14. Nat Ives, “Boston.com Joins Native Advertising Push with Sponsored Posts: Says More Than Half of Small Businesses Are Already Blogging,” AdWeek, November 13, 2012.
15. Christine Haughney and David Carr, “At Newsweek, Ending Print and a Blend of Two Styles,” New York Times, October 18, 2012.
16. Robert W. McChesney and John Nichols, The Death and Life of American Journalism: The Media Revolution That Will Begin the World Again (New York: Nation Books, 2010). See Appendix 3 and the Preface written specifically for the paperback edition.
17. Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, “The Study of the News Ecosystem of One American City,” January 11, 2010, http://www.journalism.org/analysis_report/how_news_happens.
18. For a treatment of the scorched-earth approach of a newspaper publisher who is regarded as a visionary in the move from print to digital, see David Carr, “Newspapers’ Digital Apostle,” New York Times, November 14, 2011. For a treatment of the handful of the most successful new digital newsrooms at the local level, which depend overwhelmingly on donations and foundation grants, see Michele McLellan and Mayur Patel, Getting Local: How Nonprofit News Ventures Seek Sustainability (Miami: Knight Foundation, October 2011).
19. Waldman et al., The Information Needs of Communities, 16.
20. Ibid., 226.
21. Lymari Morales, “U.S. Distrust in Media Hits New High,” gallup.com, September 21, 2012.
22. Ibid.
23. Thomas E. Patterson, The Vanishing Voter: Public Involvement in an Age of Uncertainty (New York: Vintage Books, 2002), 90.
24. Jeremy W. Peters, “Covering 2012, Youths on the Bus,” New York Times, August 31, 2011.
25. Mike Elk, “In Conference Call, Romney Urged Businesses to Tell Their Employees How to Vote,” In These Times, October 17, 2012.
26. John Nichols discussion with Mike Elk, October 18, 2012.
27. There are, unfortunately, too many stories of great journalists giving up on the craft. Like most followers of media issues, we turn to Jim Romenesko’s great blog for insight on the heartbreaking changes in the industry: http://jimromenesko.com/.
28. Waldman et al., The Information Needs of Communities, 86.
29. Quoted in Michael Miner, “Whose Fault Is Scott Lee Cohen? The Reporter Who Didn’t Pay Enough Attention Is Now the Scapegoat for Everybody Who Paid None at All,” Chicago Reader, February 11, 2010.
30. Chad Rosenbloom, “Congress’s Missing Coverage,” Extra!, August 2012.
31. Joe Rothstein, “The No-News Media Flunks Coverage of Congressional Campaigns,” EINNEWS.com, September 10, 2012.
32. Andrew Neff, “Take This Job and Shove It: Fed-Up Bangor TV Anchors Quit on Air,” Bangor Daily News, November 20, 2012.
33. Quoted in Bob Sullivan, “Sarcasm Campaigning: Social Media Hones Cynical Edge in Presidential Politics,” redtape.nbcnews.com, October 2, 2012.
34. Gretchen Cuda Kroen, “Why Local Elections Matter More to Your Personal Finance,” Marketplace Money (American Public Media), November 9, 2012.
35. Quoted in ibid.
36. Phill Brooks, “Capitol Perspectives: Campaign 2012, Advertising or Policy?,” stlouis.cbslocal.com, August 28, 2012.
37. See Thomas E. Patterson, Out of Order (New York: Vintage Books, 1994), 27.
38. Kevin Drum, “Presidential Campaigns Will Soon Be Done Entirely in CGI,” motherjones.com, September 3, 2012.
39. Brooks, “Capitol Perspectives.”
40. Jason Horowitz, “Campaigns Have Lost Control of Coverage Due to Social Media,” washington post.com, October 31, 2012.
41. Walter Shapiro, “Three Questions About Campaign Coverage,” cjr.org, November 2, 2012.
42. Kristen A. Lee, “Local Interview with Paul Ryan Ends Abruptly,” New York Daily News, October 9, 2012.
43. David Ferguson, “Maddow: Is the Romney Campaign Hiding Paul Ryan?,” Raw Story, October 27, 2012.
44. Dylan Byers, “Reporter ‘Not Allowed’ to Talk to Voters at Biden Event,” Politico, October 22, 2012.
45. “Campaigns in Control,” Extra!, October 2012, 9.
46. Greg Mitchell, “Pew Report: Candidates and Partisans, Not the Media, Control Campaign Coverage,” thenation.com, August 24, 2012.
47. Quoted in David Taintor, “Media’s Control Over Campaign Narrative Shrinks,” talkingpointsmemo.com, August 23, 2012.
48. Quoted in Beth Fouhy, “Study: Coverage of Obama, Romney Highly Negative,” Associated Press, August 23, 2012.
49. Aaron Deslatte, “Elections Forecast: More Money Will Equal More Voter Confusion,” orlandosentinel.com, August 12, 2012.
50. Craig Gilbert, “Thompson-Baldwin: Most Negative Senate Race in the Country?,” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, October 28, 2012.
51. Marquette University Law School Poll, “Results and Data: October 25–28, 2012,” https://law.marquette.edu/poll/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/MLSP14_Toplines_LIKELYVOTERS.pdf.
52. Unsigned editorial, “The Truth Hard to Dig Up Amid All the Attack Ads,” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, November 1, 2012.
53. Paul Krugman, “The Post-Truth Campaign,” New York Times, December 23, 2011.
54. Michael Cooper, “Campaigns Play Loose with Truth in a Fact-Check Age,” New York Times, August 31, 2012.
55. John Nichols, “In a Debate Between Romney and Romney, Obama Was the Spectator,” The Nation, October 3, 2012, http://www.thenation.com/blog/170349/debate-between-romney-and-romney-obama-was-spectator.
56. John Nichols, “Open the Presidential Debates!,” The Nation, August 29, 2012.
57. Amy Goodman, “Expand the Debates: This Is What Democracy Sounds Like,” syndicated column, October 7, 2012. The Open Debates movement has for a number of years made the case for allowing more candidates into U.S. presidential debates. See www.opendebates.org.
58. John Nichols, “These Debates Could Use Some Jill Stein and Gary Johnson,” The Nation, October 2, 2012.
59. Angelique Chrisafis, “Jean-Luc Mélenchon: The Poetry-Loving Pitbull Galvanising the French Elections,” The Guardian, April 6, 2012.
60. Brian Stelter, “Memo Outlines Format and Rules for Candidate Debates,” New York Times, October 15, 2012.
61. Ralph Nader, “US Media: Examine Thyself,” readersupoportednews.org, August 26, 2012.
62. Frank Vogl, “Corruption Dare No Longer Be a Taboo Topic in This Presidential Election,” huffingtonpost.com, August 22, 2012.
63. FAIR cited in Jeff Spross, “Study: Media Campaign Coverage Almost Never Addresses Poverty,” thinkprogress.org, September 15, 2012.
64. Glenn Greenwald, “Martha Raddatz and the Faux Objectivity of Journalists,” The Guardian, October 12, 2012.
65. Bill Moyers and Bernard Weisberger, “Money in Politics: Where Is the Outrage?,” Huffington Post, August 30, 2012.
66. Charley James, “Deflating Another Balloon: 2012 Candidate Coverage Balanced,” ukprogressive,co.uk, November 10, 2012.
67. Tom Rosenstiel, “Winning the Media Campaign 2012,” beyondchron.org, November 5, 2012.
68. Brian Lowry, “Is TV Shaving Political Points?,” variety.com, September 15, 2012.
69. Sasha Issenberg, “Why Campaign Reporters Are Behind the Curve,” nytimes.com, September 1, 2012.
70. Quoted in Sullivan, “Sarcasm Campaigning.”
71. Dylan Byers, “Reporters: We Loathe 2012 Campaign,” Politico, September 3, 2012.
72. Quoted in Editorial, “Tale of the Tape . . . So Far,” Columbia Journalism Review, September/October 2012.
73. Quoted in Ari Melber, “Why Fact-Checking Has Taken Root in This Year’s Election,” pbs.org, September 5, 2012.
74. Quoted in Kevin Cirilli, “Journalists Bemoan Political ‘Food Fight’ Coverage,” politico.com, September 24, 2012.
75. Phillip Morris, “America Needs a Full-Time President—the 2012 Election Cannot Be Over Soon Enough,” Cleveland.com, September 29, 2012.
76. Jonathan Chait, “GOP Poll Denialists Totally Crazy, Not Totally Wrong,” New York magazine’s “Daily Intel” column, September 27, 2012.
77. Herbert J. Gans, Democracy and the News (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 54.
78. Glenn Greenwald, “The Misery of the Protracted Presidential Campaign Season,” Salon.com, August 16, 2011, http://www.salon.com/2011/08/16/elections_9/.
79. L. Brent Bozell III and Brent H. Baker, eds., And That’s the Way It Isn’t: A Reference Guide to Media Bias (Alexandria, VA: Media Research Center, 1990), 86–94.
80. Quoted in Lloyd Grove, “Media to the Left! Media to the Right! The GOP, Shooting the Messengers,” Washington Post, August 20, 1992.
81. James Brian McPherson, The Conservative Resurgence and the Press: The Media’s Role in the Rise of the Right (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2008), xii.
82. Quoted in Mike Mills, “Meeting of the Media Giants,” Washington Post, January 21, 1995.
83. Rory O’Connor with Aaron Cutler, Shock Jocks: Hate Speech & Talk Radio (San Francisco: AlterNet Books, 2008), 2.
84. David Neiwert, The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right (Sausalito, CA: PoliPoint Press, 2009).
85. McPherson, The Conservative Resurgence, xi.
86. Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Joseph N. Cappella, Echo Chamber: Rush Limbaugh and the Conservative Media Establishment (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), ix.
87. See Doty Lynch, “How the Media Covered the 2008 Election: The Role of Earned Media,” in James A. Thurber and Candace J. Nelson, eds., Campaigns and Elections American Style, 3rd ed. (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2010), 163.
88. Michael Wolff, The Man Who Owns the News: Inside the Secret World of Rupert Murdoch (New York: Broadway Books, 2008), 282.
89. Kaplan left CNN soon thereafter. Robert McChesney conversation with Rick Kaplan, March 2002. For a detailed discussion of this period, see Scott Collins, Crazy Like a Fox: The Inside Story of How Fox News Beat CNN (New York: Portfolio, 2004), chap. 11.
90. Jamieson and Cappella, Echo Chamber, x, 240.
91. Thomas Frank, Pity the Billionaire (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2012), 155.
92. Eric Alterman provided a compendium of prominent conservatives, such as Pat Buchanan, William Kristol, and James Baker, acknowledging that the liberal bias of the news is BS. See Eric Alterman, What Liberal Media? (New York: Basic Books, 2003), 2. Ralph Reed said the same in Joe Conason, Big Lies (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2003), 34.
93. Pete Kasperowicz, “Issa Warns Taxpayers’ Loss on Solyndra Loan May Near $850 Million,” The Hill, October 22, 2012; Neela Banerjee, “Darrell Issa to Probe Government Loan Programs After Solyndra Collapse,” Los Angeles Times, September 20, 2011. Far rarer were stories such as Brad Plumer “Five Myths About the Solyndra Collapse,” Washington Post, September 14, 2011. Note that Plumer’s story discrediting the Solyndra scandal appeared a year before the Issa hearing. The facts did not seem to matter.
94. FAIR and Media Matters for America both have done rigorous work fact-checking and analyzing conservative news media, and their mountain of resultant work is fire-tested for credibility. The picture is not pretty. FAIR also applies the exact same standard to mainstream news media and finds much that is flawed there as well.
95. Fairleigh Dickinson University’s PublicMind Poll, “Some News Leaves People Knowing Less,” press release, November 21, 2011.
96. “Jon Stewart Says Those Who Watch Fox News Are the ‘Most Consistently Misinformed Media Viewers,’” PolitiFact.com, June 20, 2011, http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/jun/20/jon-stewart/jon-stewart-says-those-who-watch-fox-news-are-most/.
97. Mark Howard, “Study Confirms That Fox News Makes You Stupid,” AlterNet, December 15, 2010, http://www.alternet.org/story/149193/study_confirms_that_fox_news_makes_you_stupid/.
98. Theda Skocpol and Vanessa Williamson, The Tea Party and the Remaking of American Conservatism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 201.
99. McPherson, The Conservative Resurgence, xiii.
100. Robert McChesney conversation with Rick Kaplan, March 2002.
101. See Eric Boehlert, Lap Dogs: How the Press Rolled Over for Bush (New York: Free Press, 2006).
102. Noah Rothman, “Chris Matthews’ Panel Eviscerates Obama’s Debate Performance,” Mediaite, October 7, 2012.
103. Erik Wemple, “Dick Morris ‘Landslide’ Prediction Too Early to Call,” Washington Post, November 6, 2012.
104. Simon Maloy, “Sean Hannity: Media Matters’ 2008 Misinformer of the Year,” mediamatters.org, December 17, 2008.
105. Terry Krepel, “O’Reilly Is Right: Fox’s Hannity Is a ‘Republican Show,’” mediamatters.org, September 20, 2011.
106. Solange Uwimana, “Fox News Redefines Unbalanced by Giving Romney 366 Percent More Airtime,” mediamatters.org, November 3, 2012.
107. Skocpol and Williamson, The Tea Party, 201.
108. Frank, Pity the Billionaire, 75.
109. Skocpol and Williamson, The Tea Party, 132, 202.
110. Quoted in Jeff Zeleny, “The Up-Close-and-Personal Candidate? A Thing of the Past,” New York Times, December 1, 2011.
111. For a detailed examination of the 2000 Bush v. Gore fight, which includes a chapter on the Fox intervention on election night, see John Nichols, Jews for Buchanan (New York: New Press, 2001). See also Melinda Wittstock, “Cousin John’s Calls Tipped Election Tally: As US News Networks Raced to Declare the Winner, Fox Enjoyed a Natural Advantage,” The Observer, November 18, 2000.
112. Meredith Blake, “Karl Rove Melts Down After Fox News Calls Ohio for Obama,” Los Angeles Times, November 7, 2012.
113. Howell Raines, “Why Don’t Honest Journalists Take on Roger Ailes and Fox News?,” Washington Post, March 14, 2010. See also Robert Greenwald, Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism, http://www.outfoxed.org/.
114. Eric Boehlert, “30 Reasons Why Fox News Is Not Legit,” mediamatters.org, October 27, 2009.
115. Quoted in Dylan Byers, “Rush Limbaugh: ‘Conservatism Did Not Lose,” Politico, November 7, 2012.
116. Nader, “US Media.”
117. Glenn Greenwald, “Election 2012 and the Media: A Vast Rightwing Conspiracy of Stupid,” The Guardian, August 30, 2012.
118. Glenn Greenwald, “The Journalistic Mind,” salon.com, August 8, 2012.
119. Todd Phillips, “It’s the Need for Campaign Contributions That’s the Problem,” Huffington Post, August 23, 2012.
120. Walter Lippmann, Liberty and the News (Rpt., Mineola, NY: Dover, 2010), 1, 2, 18, 35.
1. Daily Download, “Obama Spent 10 Times as Much on Social Media as Romney,” PBS NewsHour, November 16, 2012.
2. “10 Bold Ideas for the Future of Consulting,” Campaigns & Elections, September/October 2012.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. See Jason Gainous and Kevin M. Wagner, Rebooting American Politics: The Internet Revolution (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2011), chap. 1.
7. William Grimes, “Clive Barnes, Who Raised Stakes in Dance and Theater Criticism, Dies at 81,” New York Times, November 19, 2008. The original quote appeared in a December 30, 1969, New York Times article. We like that Barnes added this proviso: “The most terrifying thing is what people do want.” But his core point regarding the democratic nature of television echoed popular thinking in the 1950s and 1960s.
8. Satwant Kaur, “How Technology Turned the Tide in the Election,” Huffington Post, November 12, 2012.
9. Quoted in Inc.com staff, “Who’s Winning the 2012 Social Media Election? Take a Look at How the Obama and Romney Social Media Campaigns Measured Up This Summer,” Inc., September 8, 2012.
10. Paul Springer and Mel Carson, “2012: The First Digital Election,” forbes.com, November 5, 2012.
11. Quoted in Paul Sloan, “Mark 2012 as History’s Last ‘Social Media’ Election,” cnet.com, November 6, 2012.
12. T. W. Farnam, “Obama Has Aggressive Internet Strategy to Woo Supporters,” Washington Post, April 6, 2012.
13. John Hudson, “The Most Expensive Election in History by the Numbers,” theatlanticwire.com, November 6, 2012, http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2012/11/most-expensive-election-history-numbers/58745/.
14. Fredreka Schouten and Christopher Schnaars, “Casino CEO Spends $39.6 Million in Late Election Effort,” USA Today, December 7, 2012.
15. Quoted in Tony Gara, “Election Ads Boom in 2012, but the Online Shift Still Isn’t Happening,” wsj.com, November 5, 2012.
16. Quoted in Scott Bomboy, “Analysis: Internet Marketing Was Breakout Star of 2012 Campaign,” constitutioncenter.org, November 14, 2012.
17. Quoted in Ned Martel, “Could the Campaign Ads Benefit from the Mad Men Touch?,” washingtonpost.com, October 24, 2012.
18. Campaigns & Elections, July/August 2012; September/October 2012; November/December 2012. We’ve read Campaign & Elections for years and reviewed it closely throughout the 2012 election season to watch the development of digital campaigning.
19. As we discuss in Chapter 2, the estimates for campaign spending vary dramatically, and that applies to Internet ad spending as well. The Economist placed it just north of $300 billion, but that was before the late surge in October and before the full extent of the spending levels became clear postelection. Some campaign insiders we consulted said online ad spending was around 10 percent of total ad spending. So we put the range well below 10 percent of total political advertising spending to play it safe. The actual total may well be closer to $500 million, and we hope in time a harder number will be determined. See “Of Mud and Money,” The Economist, September 8, 2012, http://www.economist.com/node/21562211.
20. Pew Research Center, “Low Marks for the 2012 Election,” people-press.org, November 15, 2012.
21. Cited in Aaron Smith, “Online Political Videos and Campaign 2012,” pewinternet.org, November 2, 2012.
22. Aaron Smith and Maeve Duggan, “The State of the 2012 Election–Mobile Politics,” pewinternet.org, October 9, 2012.
23. Tim Karr, “The Internet as Political Lie Detector,” Huffington Post, October 12, 2012.
24. “Facebook, Tweets Key to Victory in US Presidential Elections,” economictimes.indiatimes.com, October 14, 2012.
25. Allison Brennan, “Microtargeting: How Campaigns Know You Better Than You Know Yourself,” cnn.com, November 5, 2012.
26. Robinson Meyer, “9 Concrete, Specific Things We Actually Know About How Social Media Shape Elections,” theatlantic.com, August 22, 2012.
27. Quoted in Rob Lever, “2012 Election Campaign a Digital Battleground,” thepresidency.us, October 13, 2012.
28. For a fascinating perspective on this technological utopianism (with useful historical context), consider Howard P. Segal, Technological Utopianism in American Culture, 20th anniversary ed. (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2005).
29. This issue and many other related Internet issues are developed in Robert W. McChesney, Digital Disconnect: How Capitalism Is Turning the Internet Away from Democracy (New York: New Press, 2013).
30. For a recent discussion of this point, see Evgeny Morozov, To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism (New York: PublicAffairs, 2013).
31. Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 130 S.Ct. 876.
32. Quoted in Rick Cohen, “How Nonprofits Inadvertently Provide Cover for Political Donor Laundering,” campaignlegalcenter.org, September 6, 2012.
33. “Survival of the Biggest,” The Economist, December 1, 2012, 11.
34. See McChesney, Digital Disconnect, chap. 4.
35. Shira Ovide and Evelyn M. Rusli, “How Facebook, Twitter Court Political Campaigns,” Wall Street Journal, November 2, 2012.
36. Quoted in Craig Timberg, “Web Sites Lose to Google, AOL in Race for Obama, Romney Campaign Ads,” Washington Post, October 4, 2012.
37. Joseph Turow, The Daily You: How the New Advertising Industry Is Defining Your Identity and Your Worth (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2011), 40–41.
38. Quoted in Eli Pariser, The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You (New York: Penguin, 2011), 31.
39. See, for example, Geoffrey A. Fowler, “Facebook Sells More Access to Members,” Wall Street Journal, October 1, 2012.
40. Material for this paragraph is from Jeffrey Rosen, “Who Do They Think You Are?,” New York Times Sunday Magazine, December 2, 2012, 42–45. For an extensive development of these points, see McChesney, Digital Disconnect, chap. 5.
41. Quoted in Turow, The Daily You, 158.
42. Pariser, The Filter Bubble.
43. Rosen, “Who Do They Think You Are?,” 45.
44. Sloan, “Mark 2012.”
45. Rosen, “Who Do They Think You Are?,” 45.
46. “Deus ex machine,” The Economist, November 3, 2012, 32.
47. Alexis Madrigal, “I’m Being Followed: How Google—and 104 Other Companies—Are Tracking Me on the Web,” The Atlantic, February 2012, http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/02/im-being-followed-how-google-151-and-104-other-companies-151-are-tracking-me-on-the-web/253758/.
48. Pariser, The Filter Bubble, 49.
49. “Websites Lose Out on Election Advertisements,” advertisementjournal.com, October 10, 2012.
50. All quoted in Timberg, “Web Sites Lose to Google.”
51. Jamie Court, “Political Bloggers Should Reveal Funding,” sfgate.com, November 13, 2012.
52. In 2012, the Obama campaign advertised directly on many liberal Web sites, including those of the Daily Kos, the New Republic, and The Nation. See “Websites Lose Out.”
53. Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, “The Future of Mobile News,” journalism.org, October 1, 2012.
54. For an extensive development of these points, see McChesney, Digital Disconnect, chap. 6.
55. Pew Research Center, “Internet Gains Most as Campaign News Source but Cable TV Still Leads: Social Media Doubles, but Remains Limited,” journalism.org, October 25, 2012.
56. Bob Sullivan, “Sarcasm Campaigning: Social Media Hones Cynical Edge in Presidential Politics,” redtape.nbcnews.com, October 2, 2012.
57. Quoted in Adam Mazmanian, “Selling the Hashtag Election,” National Journal, September 11, 2012, http://www.nationaljournal.com/tech/selling-the-hashtag-election-20120911.
58. Susan Currie Sivek, “How Political Magazines Use Twitter to Drive 2012 Election Chatter,” pbs.org/mediashift, October 31, 2012.
59. Regina McCombs, “How to Keep Social Media Reaction in Perspective When Covering Elections,” pointer.org, October 24, 2012.
60. Jason Horowitz, “Campaigns Have Lost Control of Coverage Due to Social Media,” standard.net, October 31, 2012.
61. Quoted in Neha Prakash, ““Gaffesplosion: The Unrelenting Hype of Modern Politics,” machable.com, October 2, 2012.
62. Horowitz, “Campaigns Have Lost Control of Coverage.”
63. See John Nichols, “The Next Media System,” in Uprising: How Wisconsin Renewed the Politics of Protest, from Madison to Wall Street (New York: Nation Books, 2012).
64. Quoted in Tom Rosenstiel, “Winning the Media Campaign 2012,” beyondchron.org, November 5, 2012.
65. Quoted in Meyer, “9 Concrete, Specific Things.”
66. Joshua Brustein, “Start-Ups Aim to Help Us Put a Price on Their Personal Data,” New York Times, February 13, 2012.
67. Christina Lamb, “Is Obama Stalking You?,” spectator.co.uk, October 27, 2012.
68. Quoted in Scott Bomboy, “Analysis: Internet Marketing Was Breakout Star of 2012,” blog.constitutioncenter.org, November 14, 2012.
69. Tim Dickinson, “The Obama Campaign’s Real Heroes,” RollingStone.com, December 7, 2012.
70. Jim Rutenberg and Jeff Zeleny, “Obama Mines for Voters with High Tech Tools,” New York Times, March 8, 2012.
71. Dickinson, “The Obama Campaign’s Real Heroes.”
72. Michael Scherer, “Inside the Secret World of the Data Crunchers Who Helped Obama Win,” swamp land.time.com, November 7, 2012.
73. Joshua Green, “Corporations Want Obama’s Winning Formula,” Bloomberg Businessweek, November 28–December 2, 2012, 37.
74. Emily Steel, “US Election Offers Advertising Lessons,” ft.com, November 8, 2012.
75. See, for example, Derrick Harris, “How Obama’s Tech Team Helped Deliver the 2012 Election,” gigaom.com, November 12, 2012; “Facebook, Tweets key to victory”; Springer and Carson, “2012”; and Bomboy, “Analysis.”
76. Quoted in Scherer, “Inside the Secret World.”
77. Quoted in Dickinson, “The Obama Campaign’s Real Heroes.”
78. Mark Milian, “The Quest for More Clicks,” Bloomberg Businessweek, September 24–30, 2012, 42.
79. Lamb, “Is Obama Stalking You?”
80. Quoted in Green “Corporations Want Obama’s Winning Formula,” 37.
81. L. Gordon Crovitz, “How Campaigns Hypertarget Voters Online,” wsj.com, November 4, 2012.
82. Ibid.
83. Charles Duhigg, “Campaigns Mine Personal Lives to Get Out Vote,” New York Times, October 14, 2012.
84. David Wells, “Microtargeting: How Campaigns Know You Better Than You Know Yourself,” fox13now.com, November 5, 2012.
85. Molly McHugh, “How Social Media, Data Mining, and New-Fangled Technology Tipped the 2012 Election,” digitaltrends,com, November 10, 2012.
86. Scherer, “Inside the Secret World.”
87. Dickinson, “The Obama Campaign’s Real Heroes.”
88. Wells, “Microtargeting.”
89. Lois Beckett, “Web Cookies Used by Companies to Tailor Political Ads You See Online,” Huffington Post, October 23, 2012.
90. Kevin Liptak, “Obama Team: Campaign Was Great, but Candidate More Important,” cnn.com, November 8, 2012.
91. Quoted in Lamb, “Is Obama Stalking You?”
92. Duhigg, “Campaigns Mine Personal Lives.”
93. “Deus ex machine,” 32.
94. Dickinson, “The Obama Campaign’s Real Heroes.”
95. Green, “Corporations Want Obama’s Winning Formula,” 38.
96. Scherer, “Inside the Secret World.”
97. Jim Rutenberg, “Secret of Obama Victory? Rerun Watchers, for One,” New York Times, November 12, 2012.
98. Quoted in Dickinson, “The Obama Campaign’s Real Heroes.”
99. Both quoted in ibid.
100. Green, “Corporations Want Obama’s Winning Formula,” 38, 39.
101. Living Room Candidate, “Introduction,” http://www.livingroomcandidate.org/.
102. Quoted in Dickinson, “The Obama Campaign’s Real Heroes.”
103. Jim Rutenberg, “Secret of Obama Victory?”
104. Rutenberg and Zeleny, “Obama Mines for Voters.”
105. Quoted in Scherer, “Inside the Secret World.”
106. Quoted in Joshua Green, “Hey, Read This,” Bloomberg Businessweek, December 3–December 9, 2012, 31–32.
107. Dickinson, “The Obama Campaign’s Real Heroes.”
108. Green “Corporations Want Obama’s Winning Formula,” 38.
109. Harris, “How Obama’s Tech Team Helped.”
110. Duhigg, “Campaigns Mine Personal Lives.”
111. Messina quoted in Dickinson, “The Obama Campaign’s Real Heroes.”
112. McHugh, “How Social Media . . . Tipped the 2012 Election.”
113. Quoted in Rutenberg, “Secret of Obama Victory?”
114. Quoted in Dickinson, “The Obama Campaign’s Real Heroes.”
115. Quoted in Kate Kaye, “IAB’s Big Data Driven Political Ad Push Backs Lobbying Goals,” clickz.com, October 2, 2012.
116. Quoted in Molly A. K. Connors, “After a $6 Billion Election, Politicos Say Data Mining Is the Wave of the Future,” Concord (New Hampshire) Monitor, November 13, 2012.
117. Robert Mann, Daisy Petals and Mushroom Clouds: LBJ, Barry Goldwater, and the Ad That Changed American Politics (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2011), 111–113.
118. Cited in Laurie Sullivan, “Obama Beats Romney in Online Political Ad Spend,” mediapost.com, November 5, 2012.
119. Alexandra Jaffe, “GOP Groups Turn to Digital Ads in Final Weeks of Campaign,” thehill.com, November 4, 2012.
120. Quoted in Steel, “US Election.”
121. Quoted in R. Wilson, “Candidates Turn to Geo-Targeting in Ads,” thehill.com, October 14, 2012.
122. Quoted in Melanie Mason, “What’s the Future of Campaign Advertising? Look to the Four Screens,” latimes.com, November 6, 2012.
123. Quoted in Joseph N. DiStefano, “New Political Advertising Targets Voters Via Their Online Habits,” philly.com, November 5, 2012.
124. Quoted in Lamb, “Is Obama Stalking You?”
125. Rosen, “Who Do They Think You Are?,” 42.
126. Quoted in Kaye, “IAB’s Big Data.”
127. Quoted in Natasha Singer and Charles Duhigg, “Tracking Voters’ Clicks Online to Try to Sway Them,” nytimes.com, October 27, 2012.
128. Joseph Turow, Michael X. Delli Carpini, Nora Draper, and Rowan Howard-Williams, “Americans Roundly Reject Tailored Political Advertising” (Philadelphia: Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania, July 2012).
129. Quoted in Wilson, “Candidates Turn to Geo-Targeting.”
130. Andy Ellenthal, “7 Political Ad Tactics Every Marketer Should Know,” imediaconnection.com, August 15, 2012.
131. Jeremy Peters, “With Video, Obama Looks to Expand Campaign’s Reach Through Social Media,” New York Times, March 15, 2012.
132. Quoted in Tanzina Vega, “Online Data Helping Campaigns Customize Ads,” New York Times, February 21, 2012.
133. Quoted in Wells, “Microtargeting.”
134. Mason, “What’s the Future?”
135. DiStefano, “New Political Advertising.”
136. Quoted in Beckett, “Web Cookies.”
137. Adam Lehmann, “Guess What? Online Political Ads Don’t Turn Voters Off. They Work,” adage.com, October 4, 2012.
138. Steel, “US election.”
139. Dickinson, “The Obama Campaign’s Real Heroes.”
140. Megan Woo and Joe St. George, “Internet Users React to Online Political Ads,” wtvr.com, October 22, 2012.
141. Quoted in Beckett, “Web Cookies.”
142. Lehmann, “Guess What?”
143. Lamb, “Is Obama Stalking You?”
144. Turow et al., “Americans Roundly Reject Tailored Political Advertising,” 25.
145. Ibid., 26.
146. Quoted in Wells, “Microtargeting.”
147. Quoted in Beckett, “Web Cookies.”
148. Singer and Duhigg, “Tracking Voters’ Clicks Online.”
149. Maclver Institute Staff, “Stunner: Walker Recall Petitions NOT Available for Online Review,” MacIver Institute, January 30, 2012.
150. “United Wisconsin Statement on Gab Decision to Post Recall Petitions Online,” PolitiScoop, February 2, 2012, http://www.politiscoop.com/us-politics/wisconsin-politics/704-united-wisconsin-statement-on-gab-decision-to-post-recall-petitions-online.html.
151. Dan Bice, “Judge Draws Flak for Signing Walker Recall Petition,” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, March 6, 2012.
152. Turow et al., “Americans Roundly Reject Tailored Political Advertising,” 7, 26.
153. Jon Peha, “Making Political Ads Personal,” Politico, September 11, 2012.
154. Stephan Lesher, George Wallace: American Populist (New York: Da Capo Press, 1995); “George Wallace: Settin’ the Woods on Fire,” The American Experience, Public Broadcasting Service, 1999.
155. See Thomas F. Schaller, Whistling Past Dixie: How Democrats Can Win Without the South (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008); and Tim Noah, “Forget the South, Democrats: Stop Coddling the Spoiled Brat of Presidential Politics,” Slate, January 27, 2004.
156. Quoted in Patrick Doyle, “The No-Holds Barred, Deception-Filled Campaign,” bostonmagazine.com, September 5, 2012.
157. Quoted in Lois Beckett, “Dark Money Political Groups Target Voters Based on Their Internet Habits,” ProPublica.org, July 26, 2012.
158. “Deus ex machine,” 32.
159. Beckett, “Dark Money Political Groups.”
160. Kim Geiger, “Is Political Text Message Spam Legal?,” latimes.com, September 26, 2012.
161. Alina Selyukh, “Storm of Anti-Obama Text Messages Linked to Virginia Firm,” chicagotribune.com, October 31, 2012.
162. Goodstein is the founder of Revolution Messaging, LLC, and he served as external online director for Obama for America. You can learn more about him at http://revolutionmessaging.com/about-us/.
163. Scott Goodstein, “An Open Letter to FCC Chairman Genachowski—Take Action and Stop Political Text Spam,” Huffington Post, May 31, 2012.
164. Ibid.
165. Dave Nyczepir, “FCC Takes Up Text Message Spam: The Legality of Text Message Spam Depends on Who You Ask,” Campaigns & Elections, October 25 2012, http://www.campaignsandelections.com/campaign-insider/333042/fcc-takes-up-text-message-spam.thtml.
166. Ibid.
167. Turow et al., “Americans Roundly Reject Tailored Political Advertising,” 27.
168. Beckett, “Dark Money Political Groups.”
169. Peha, “Making Political Ads Personal.”
170. Turow et al., “Americans Roundly Reject Tailored Political Advertising,” 26.
171. Margaret Rock, “ITTO: How Political Ads Target You,” mobiledia.com, August 8, 2012.
172. Mason, “What’s the Future?”
173. Mike Farrell, “Advanced Advertising: Data Will Drive Addressable Market,” multichannel.com, November 13, 2012.
174. Turow et al., “Americans Roundly Reject Tailored Political Advertising,” 26.
175. Quoted in Wells, “Microtargeting.”
176. Turow et al., “Americans Roundly Reject Tailored Political Advertising,” 4.
177. Kate Kaye, “Obama’s Approach to Big Data: Do as I Say, Not as I Do,” adage.com, November 16, 2012.
1. Irving Dilliard, ed., Mr. Justice Brandeis, Great American (St. Louis: Modern View Press, 1941), 42.
2. John Evan Seery, A Political Companion to Walt Whitman (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2011), 298.
3. Thomas Jefferson to Edmund Randolph, 1799, ME 10:126. This letter is found in The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Memorial Edition (Andrew Adgate Lipscomb and Albert Ellery Bergh, eds.), published in 20 volumes in 1903–1904. Washington: Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association of the United States.
4. Alexander Keyssar, The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States (New York: Basic Books, rev. ed. published in 2009).
5. Garrett Epps, “Voting: Right or Privilege?,” The Atlantic, September 18, 2012.
6. Ibid.
7. See Robert W. McChesney, Digital Disconnect: How Capitalism Is Turning the Internet Against Democracy (New York: New Press, 2013), chap. 3.
8. Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., The Cycles of American History (New York: Mariner Books, 1999).
9. Ibid., 24.
10. Thurgood Marshall, “Remarks at the Annual Seminar of the San Francisco Patent and Trademark Law Association,” Maui, Hawaii, May 6, 1987, http://www.thurgoodmarshall.com/speeches/constitutional_speech.htm.
11. To understand the scope and significance of Shays’ Rebellion, a 1786–1787 revolt by Revolutionary War soldiers in Massachusetts, reread Gore Vidal, “Homage to Daniel Shays,” New York Review of Books, August 10, 1972; and Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States (New York: HarperCollins, 2005).
12. Darren Staloff, Hamilton, Adams, Jefferson: The Politics of Enlightenment and the American Founding (New York: Hill and Wang, 2005). The core discussion of the exchanges can be found on 305–309.
13. Ibid.
14. Brad Plumer, “‘We Have to Fix That,’ but Will We?,” Washington Post, November 8, 2012.
15. Teddy Roosevelt, “The New Nationalism,” August 31, 1910, http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/12/06/archives-president-teddy-roosevelts-new-nationalism-speech.
16. Paul Steinhauser et al., “CNN Poll: Majority Think Government Is Broken,” CNN, February 21, 2010.
17. Frank Newport, “Debt, Gov’t Dysfunction Rise to Top of Americans’ Issue List: Fewer Americans Now Cite Unemployment as Most Important Problem,” Gallup Politics, January 14, 2013.
18. Steinhauser et al., “CNN Poll.”
19. It is important to note the deep democracy component of the Occupy movement. Though undercovered by much of the media, the Occupy Wall Street activism that took form in September 2011 advanced a steady and serious critique of campaign finance and election issues. Occupy activists linked this critique to the economic concerns that the movement discussed, making the critical point that giving more power to the people is one of the best ways to assure that economic choices are made with an eye toward the needs of all Americans. See William Greider, “The Democratic Promise of Occupy Wall Street,” The Nation, November 22, 2011.
20. John Nichols, “Feingold Fears ‘Lawless’ Court Ruling on Corporate Campaigning,” The Nation, January 13, 2010.
21. Rachel Weiner, “Obama Suggests Constitutional Amendment in Reddit Chat,” Washington Post, August 29, 2012.
22. John Bonifaz, Steve Cobble, and other coordinators of the Free Speech for People movement spoke regularly with John Nichols about these changes during the period from 2010 to 2013. Bonifaz also addressed the evolution in a fine interview published January 1, 2013, by the Wisdom Voices project. The interview can be found at http://wisdomvoices.com/john-bonifaz-the-face-of-democracy-2013/.
23. Free Speech for People, “Analysis: America Is Now One Quarter of the Way to Amending the Constitution to Overturn Citizens United,” November 7, 2012, http://freespeechforpeople.org/sites/default/files/StateProgessPressRelease.pdf.
24. Move to Amend, “Election Results: Move to Amend Initiative Resolutions Win Big,” November 7, 2012, https://movetoamend.org/election-results-move-amend-initiative-resolutions-win-big.
25. Ibid.
26. Interview with Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, January 23, 2013. Weissman provided details regarding many of the grassroots campaigns described in this section and discussed strategies for advancing constitutional reform and a variety of related initiatives.
27. Move to Amend, “Election Results.”
28. Memo prepared by Public Campaign’s Nick Nyhart, shared with authors, January 18, 2013. John Nichols wrote about the memo and many of the campaign-finance reforms outlined in this section in “The Election Reform Moment?,” The Nation, January 30, 2013.
29. Interview with Weissman.
30. Timothy Karr, “Left in the Dark: Local Election Coverage in the Age of Big-Money Politics,” Free Press, September 2012. We have spoken regularly to Copps about this issue, as he has worked with Free Press and Common Cause in his post-FCC years.
31. Dave Boyer, “Softer Campaign-Finance Bill Offered by McCain, Feingold: McConnell Promises to Defeat Measure Again,” Washington Times, September 17, 1999.
32. Jaron Lanier, “The False Ideals of the Web,” New York Times, January 18, 2012.
33. Andy Kroll, “The Massive New Liberal Plan to Remake American Politics: A Month After President Obama Won Reelection, America’s Most Powerful Liberal Groups Met to Plan Their Next Moves. Here’s What They Talked About,” Mother Jones, January 9, 2013.
34. Formed by Josh Silver, with whom we worked to create and develop Free Press, United Republic is online at http://unitedrepublic.org.
35. Free Speech for People, “Analysis.”
36. John Bonifaz interview with John Nichols, May 22, 2011.
37. John F. Kennedy, “Remarks in Nashville at the 90th Anniversary Convocation of Vanderbilt University,” May 18, 1963. Accessed March 11, 2013, at: http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/Ready-Reference/JFK-Speeches/Remarks-in-Nashville-at-the-90th-Anniversary-Convocation-of-Vanderbilt-University-May-18-1963.aspx.
38. John Nichols and Robert W. McChesney, “After ‘Citizens United’: The Attack of the Super PACs,” The Nation, February 6, 2012.
39. For a detailed assessment of how different countries approach campaign-finance rules and regulations, public financing, and free-airtime issues, see Reginald Austin and Maja Tjernström, eds., Funding of Political Parties and Election Campaigns (Stockholm: International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, 2003). The information in the handbook is regularly updated online at www.idea.int/.
40. Ralph Negrine, Party Election Broadcasts, Sheffield University, http://pebs.group.shef.ac.uk/ (accessed February 8, 2013).
41. Adlai Stevenson, “Speech at the Democratic National Convention,” August 18, 1956, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=75172.
42. The original McCain-Feingold legislation, as advanced in the mid-1990s, featured a plan for free airtime. Compromises to advance the legislation scrapped the plan. But McCain and Feingold returned with a new proposal in 2002. Here’s a link to background on the “Our Democracy Our Airwaves” campaign that sought to promote it: http://www.wisdc.org/freeair.php.
43. Quoted in Herbert Joseph Muller, Adlai Stevenson: A Study in Values (New York: Harper & Row, 1967), 174.
44. See Robert W. McChesney and John Nichols, The Death and Life of American Journalism: The Media Revolution That Will Begin the World Again (New York: Nation Books, 2011).
45. Ibid.
46. UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, the OAS (Organization of American States) Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression, and the ACHPR (African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights) Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression and Access to Information, “Joint Declaration on the Media and Elections,” May 15, 2009, http://www.osce.org/.
47. Thomas Jefferson letter to Littleton Waller Tazewell, January 5, 1805. Accessed March 9, 2013, from Jefferson, Thomas, and others. Sixty-eight letters to and from Jefferson, 1805–1817, Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library.
48. Barack Obama, “Remarks by the President at Hampton University Commencement,” May 9, 2010.
49. Chris Hogg, “Japan’s Old-Fashioned Campaigning,” BBC, July 12, 2007, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6292602.stm; and Coco Masters, “Japan’s Twitter-Free Election Campaign,” Time, August 18, 2009.
50. Masters, “Japan’s Twitter-Free Election Campaign.”
51. Randolph T. Stevenson and Lynn Vavreck, “Does Campaign Length Matter? Testing for Cross-National Effects,” paper delivered at the Midwest Political Science Association meeting, held in Chicago, April 18–20, 1996. A longer version of the argument is found at http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/polisci/faculty/vavreck/bjps.pdf. We differ with some of the conclusions of this paper, but we respect its review of the arguments for and against short campaigns, the literature on various sides of the issue, and the comparisons provided in terrific charts.
52. Ibid.
53. In regard to direct observation, John Nichols, a commentator for the BBC, RTE-Irish Radio, and Al Jazeera English, has covered politics and elections in more than a dozen countries around the world, with particular focus on Britain, Canada, Ireland, India, Israel, Italy, and South Africa. For statistical measures of political engagement, see Judith Torney-Purta, Carolyn Henry Barber, and Wendy Klandl Richardson, “Trust in Government-Related Institutions and Political Engagement Among Adolescents in Six Countries,” Acta Politica 39, no. 4 (December 2004): 380–406.
54. International IDEA, Voter Turnout survey, http://www.idea.int/vt/index.cfm. The International IDEA Voter Turnout Website contains the most comprehensive global collection of voter turnout statistics available. Regularly updated voter turnout figures for national presidential and parliamentary elections since 1945, as well as European Parliament elections, are presented country by country using both the number of registered voters and voting age population (VAP) as indicators. Accessed March 9, 2013.
55. The OSCE comprises fifty-six “participating States” from three continents: North America, Europe, and Asia. Its member states are home to more than 1 billion people, including Americans. The United States is a longtime member. An OSCE team was on the ground observing the 2012 elections in the United States. Unfortunately, there is not much history of U.S. officials embracing recommendations from overseas missions observing our elections. After the 2008 presidential election, an OSCE mission recommended thirty-eight significant changes to how the United States runs elections and how media approach elections. They were tepid proposals. Yet for the most part they were ignored.
56. Jimmy Carter, “Still Seeking a Fair Florida Vote,” Washington Post, September 27, 2004. For a list of elections monitored by the Carter Center, see http://www.cartercenter.org/peace/democracy/observed.html.
57. Thomas Lundberg, “Election Reform in Japan?,” in FairVote, “Voting and Democracy Report: 1995.” Accessed November 16, 2012. A longer version of Lundberg’s report appears in “Illinois Assembly on Political Representation and Alternative Electoral Systems Final Reports and Background Publications,” Spring 2002 (Urbana: University of Illinois Institute of Government and Public Affairs), 19.
58. Alex Martin, “Historic Sea Change at Polls Product of Frustrated Public,” Japan Times, August 30, 2009.
59. For information on election reform in New Zealand, go to the government of New Zealand’s Ministry of Justice Web site at http://www.justice.govt.nz/electoral (accessed February 22, 2013).
60. Franklin Roosevelt, “Oglethorpe University Commencement Address, May 22, 1932,” in The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Vol. 1, The Genesis of the New Deal, 1928–1932 (New York: Random House, 1938), 639.
61. Walt Whitman, “Drum-Taps, Rise O Days from Your Fathomless Deep, No. 3,” www.bartleby.com/142/114.html (accessed February 22, 2013).
62. Bill Moyers, “The Power of Democracy,” speech accepting the Public Intellectual Award of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, February 7, 2007, in Moyers on Democracy (New York: Anchor Books, 2009), 92.
63. Epps, “Voting.”
64. FairVote, “Why We Need the Right to Vote Amendment,” www.fairvote.org, http://www.fairvote.org/why-we-need-the-right-to-vote-amendment#.UQ18P7-x_Qg. Accessed March 10, 2013. FairVote has launched a national campaign to promote the right-to-vote amendment. Learn more about it at: http://www.promoteourvote.com/.
65. Ibid.
66. Ibid.
67. John Nichols, “One Year After Florida Debacle: Jesse Jackson Jr. Presses for Fundamental Election Reforms,” The Nation, November 7, 2001. John Nichols wrote a number of articles on Jackson’s push for a right-to-vote amendment and appeared at numerous academic and political forums with Jackson, Raskin, Cobble, and other proponents of the amendment. Many of these forums were sponsored by Jim Hightower’s Chautauqua Project of 2001 and 2002 and later by Progressive Democrats of America. The latter remains a staunch proponent of full voting rights, making it a rare entity on the American political landscape. FairVote and the Brennan Center also deserve high marks for their ongoing advocacy, which extends beyond detailing assaults on democracy to proposing the reforms necessary to prevent future assaults.
68. Ibid.
69. Conversation with Congressman Mark Pocan, February 23, 2013.
70. For more on the thinking of progressive jurists such as former U.S. Supreme Court justice John Paul Stevens regarding the dubious constitutionality of gerrymandering legislative and congressional districts, see John Nichols, “Three Strategies to Block the Gerrymandering of the Electoral College,” The Nation, January 25, 2013.
71. For more information on the struggle to open up U.S. presidential debates to more parties, more candidates, and more ideas, see http://www.opendebates.org. See also John Nichols, “Open the Presidential Debates!,” The Nation, September 17, 2012.
72. For more on instant runoff voting and other democracy reforms, see www.fairvote.org.
73. The Electoral College, a remnant from the compromises with slavery that were the shame of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, allows for the “election” of a president who has actually lost the popular vote. This antidemocratic result last occurred in 2000 when George W. Bush became the president despite having lost the contest by more than 560,000 votes. Unlike in most countries, the popular vote was not definitional in 2000. After the close of the 1968 election, President Nixon and top Democrats appeared to be united in their support of a constitutional amendment to eliminate the Electoral College. It was supported by a majority of senators, but a filibuster by southern segregationist Democrats and conservative Republicans blocked the change. Current proposals to eliminate the Electoral College have been advanced in recent years by Florida senator Bill Nelson and others, as well as a number of reform groups, such as FairVote and the Liberty Tree Foundation.
74. George C. Edwards III, Why the Electoral College Is Bad for America, 2nd ed. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2011).
75. Free Speech for People, “Congressman McGovern Introduces the People’s Rights Amendment,” November 15, 2013, freespeechforpeople.org, http://freespeechforpeople.org/McGovern.
76. Ibid.
77. Whitman, “Drum-Taps.”
78. Thomas Jefferson, “Letter to Roger Weightman,” June 24–26, 1826, Library of Congress, http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/jefferson/214.html.