I caught this press release in my morning reading from my home state. Geeze talk about calling the kettle black...
Outside Groups Attempt to Buy a U.S. Senate Seat for Congressman Portman
Columbus –As Congressman Portman announces the big bucks he has raised from Washington lobbyists, Wall Street executives, and the insurance industry, third party groups continue to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy Portman’s way into the Senate.
“Ohioans know that this is an election not an auction,” said Holly Shulman, spokeswoman for Fisher for Ohio. “Shadowy third-party groups shilling on Congressman Portman’s behalf are using their special interest clout to elect a Senator who wants to keep tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas, put seniors’ Social Security in the stock market, and keep tax breaks for millionaires.”
This third party spending in Ohio is part of a national trend. A report released yesterday by the Sunlight Foundation found that spending by outside groups nationally increased by $78 million in the last week – amounting to more than $200 million this election cycle – an 80% increase from 2006.
Read the rest of the whine here.
Comment: I have to laugh every time I read one of these press releases where a candidate accuses the opposition of receiving money from unknown sources and who is always being bought off. Well I thought that all ended when the 17th Amendment was passed.
Folks, the only way we can truly roll back the huge amounts of money being fed into these senatorial races from every corner of the world is to return to the original framework of the US Constitution by repealing the 17th Amendment. If the 17th was repealed I estimate that three quarters of all outside influence exerted by special interest groups would be removed from the Senate. It's empirical, but I would be willing to bet it's a fairly close estimation.
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