Hypocrisy Already?

It's now officially summertime of an even-numbered year.  That means it’s time for the political noise machines to screech back to life.

I’ll admit political machines can occasionally be entertaining and sometimes produce something positive. For the most part the output is just whining noises, half-truths and tired spin trying to find anything that will stick to their opponents. 

One of our jobs here at Big Political Cheese is to examine the cacophonous whine and provide a useful translation for the masses that, you know, have lives.

To my surprise, the first political noise story of the season seems to have gotten out already… on the front page of the Leader Telegram yesterday.  Unfortunately, like an ACME product, it’s already blown up in Wile E. Coyote’s face.

Somewhere, Terry Moulton is wiping the soot from his face.

Last week, the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign released their report on the evils of money in the legislative campaign process.  The gist of WDC report: legislative campaigns in competitive districts receive a high share of donations from outside their districts.  Really?  So say, a Republican in solidly Democratic Milwaukee County decides that instead of sending money to a sure-to-lose local candidate he’ll contribute to races elsewhere so that Republicans have a chance at winning majority control of the Senate or Assembly. That’s not democracy for that donor?

(For the record, I'm glad WDC does this.  Lord knows, someone needs to try to keep politicians honest. It’s just that WDC is a tad too altruistic to be relevant in the real world.  But thanks for giving us something aspire to.)

This story comes out every other year. 

This story is routinely ignored by the public.

This story is benignly neglected by the press (unless it has column inches to fill).

Politicos usually just roll their eyes and snicker, unless buried in the report there is a tidbit of information that can be used to make some quick political hay.

In step Terry Moulton and the GOP Coordinated Campaign.  They hope to get off a quick story attacking some of their prime targets: State Senators Kathleen Vinehout and Pat Kreitlow, and Assembly Rep Kristen Dexter.

The Moulton Campaign puts out a press release last Friday and waits for someone in the media to bite.

It doesn’t take long.  The bait is taken by the curmudgeonly (and GOP leaning) editor of the Leader Telegram, Don Huebscher.  

On Monday morning, there is a front-page story complete with quotes from Mo(u)ldy's press release screaming “Gotcha!”

About 70% of the +$100 donations Senator Kreitlow received were from donors outside the 23^rd  Senate district. 

“For shame,” says Terry, the two time loser who desperately wants to return to Madison as the new State Senator from that district. “For shame!”

And then comes the Road Runner moment...

Following the jump to Page 2 (of course), you get the rest of the story. 

It seems Mo(u)ldy’s number was closer to 80% when he was an incumbent Assembly Rep running for re-election.

Ooops.

Kreitlow fires back here.

The next day Huebscher laments the corrupting power of money in politics… as an aside at the end of an editorial.

The GOP Coordinated Campaign continues to push their side of the story in other parts of the state, by commenting on the LT story and quoting the Moulton press release.

* * *

Mo(u)ldy knows how the game is played. He did nothing to change it while he was in Madison and won’t if he returns. If it took 99.9% of out of district donations to insure his re-election, he would take it in a heartbeat.

Worse, Huebscher tries to have it both ways.  He’ll give prominent play to a group that rails against Big Money in politics and wants to solve that by increasing the opportunity for public financing… even though Huebscher and almost every other conservative on the planet rails against public financing.  As long as it makes the right people look bad – in this case Vinehout, Kreitlow and Dexter.

In the GOP’s world, it’s best if all the money comes from inside a district.  It’s not their problem if John Menard is the only billionaire in a district and he wants to max out to Terry Moulton.

Meanwhile a Democratic opponent has to work that much harder to make up the difference in $25 and $50 checks from people who never know when John Menard might fire them for making direct eye contact.

* * *

We need have a real debate on campaign finance reform.

I believe the real answer to ending the appearance of money corrupting politics is to have all taxpayers own the elections instead of just the donors. 

We like to say, “You can’t complain about the government if you don’t vote.”  Too many cynically believe it should say, “You can’t complain about the government if you don’t send checks to politicians.” 

At least Kreitlow has done something to try and fix a broken the system.  It was limited to State Supreme Court races, but it’s a start.

And if Mo(u)ldy and the Republicans really cared about reform instead of “Gotcha!” games, we could see other races getting fixed too.

But Wile E. Coyote never learns from his mistakes and is not interested in learning from them.

He just moves on to the next “Gotcha!” set up.

Meep! Meep!

(with a hat tip to Chuck Jones and Andrew Sullivan)