Corporate speech (Salt Lake Trib editorial)

[struggle4progress]

Supreme Court's checkbook politics
Tribune Editorial
Updated: 01/22/2010 01:28:57 PM MST

... So forget about the Republican and Democratic parties. The Supreme Court has made them obsolete. Now, there could be candidates from, say, Exxon, Walmart or GE. Big business can eliminate the middle man -- the political parties -- pick their own candidates and campaign for them directly in TV and Internet ads, billboards, blogs, tweets, direct mail, whatever.

A more insidious strategy would be for corporations to produce ads for major party candidates that they favor. That way the corporate sponsors -- not the candidate -- can control the message precisely while not appearing to pull the strings. Rather, they simply would be exercising their constitutional right to free speech in the election process.

Or, likeliest of all, they could target candidates they don't like and bludgeon them with negative ads ...

... an absolutist Supreme Court would brook no middle ground. Its ruling returns U.S. politics to the Gilded Age, when corporations owned candidates and government.

http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_14247455

[Drunken Irishman]

1. Salt Lake. ;)

[struggle4progress]

2. picky picky picky

;)