The Elections are Open for Business, but candidates don’t come cheap

On one hand, Obama has a point in embracing the very Super PACs that he decried in his 2010 State of the Union Address (Remember how offended Samuel Alito was with Obama’s comments on Citizens United. The jury’s still out whether Alito refuses to attend the SofU due to indignation or embarrassment). After all, he can’t be expected to walk into the 2012 electoral gunfight with nothing more than a campaign pocket knife.

On the other hand, this is exactly the way bad, anti-democratic ideas become entrenched. One party gains a monstrous, insurmountable advantage. This limits the other party’s choices. Lose on principle or lose the principle. Now that both parties are recipients of virtually limitless largesse from the 1%, these SuperPACs will be established and institutionalized by the end of 2012 and will remain an electoral force well into the foreseeable future. Soon, the organizational frameworks will be almost impossible to disfranchise.

Just like any important issue in democracy, SuperPACs will not be confronted in the halls of government. It must be defeated from the streets. Power gives nothing without a demand.