Q: How tacky is this unending spectacle of America's plutocrats being fellated by her presidential candidates?
A: So tacky that the cast of Jersey Shore has just endorsed public financing of U.S. elections. (rim shot)
Look at this list of the top donors to SuperPACs: there's not one beneficiary that's a Democrat! But, not to worry, this might be a temporary phenomenon. Over time the Democrats will get better at the art of fellating the rich and some rough parity in campaign funding will eventually be established, I think.
The top donor in the list is Sheldon Adelson, the casino magnate. I have blogged about Mr. Adelson before. Mr. Adelson is interesting because his case makes clear that America's plutocrats aren't exclusively focused on pocketbook compulsions --- sometimes they go with their hearts!
Adelson had backed Newt Gingrich, to the tune of $21 million, against Mitt Romney in the Republican primaries. Take a good look at the half-hour anti-Romney film produced with Adelson's cash, "When Mitt Romney Came to Town". You'd think the film was made by Bolsheviks! (See also yesterday's episode of The Daily Show, 5:54.) It is a three-hanky tear jerker about the devastation wrought by Bain Capital, the private equity firm, under Mitt Romney.
So, is Adelson a bleeding-heart liberal? Not really. After all, he was supporting Newt Gingrich, who was, if anything, further to the right of Romney. Moreover, with the primaries over, Adelson has just written a check for $10 million to the same Mitt Romney he had savaged earlier for being a heartless capitalist.
So, what's going on here? What was "When Mitt Romney Came to Town" all about?
About nothing, really. The Bolshie rhetoric was just campaign strategy. As Wyatt Andrews' report suggests, Adelson's gifts, first to Gingrich and now to Romney, were all about his understanding of which candidate was good for Israel. In the primaries, he supported Gingrich because he liked Gingrich's views on Israel and on Palestinians; the anti-Bain Capital fulminations were just a smokescreen. Now that the primaries are over, Adelson is supporting Romney over Obama, not because he thinks Romney will be better than Obama for the poor people he cares so much about, but because he thinks Romney would be better for Israel. According to an article in today's Wall Street Journal, "Mr. Adelson, a leading member in the Republican Jewish Coalition, has publicly called Mr. Obama's support of Israel too weak."
Mystery solved!
The sad thing is that, while Adelson can throw cash at his preferred candidate, the campaign ads he pays for can't say out loud why he prefers that candidate. His proxies are reduced to making up lie after lie. First his money said that Romney was a heartless capitalist, and now his money will say Obama is a vicious socialist. The real reason behind Adelson's attacks will have to remain unsaid. Adelson is doing what he is doing out of love. But it is a love that can't speak its name.
Update, June 16, 2012: Sheldon Adelson has popped up on Senator John McCain's radar. Also, see this video.
Update, June 24, 2012: Whoa, an editorial in today's The New York Times says basically what I said in my post!
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