Grover Norquist, The 5 Conservative Supreme Court Justices, The Koch Brothers, Sheldon Adelson, and everyone over at Faux News that have campaigned tirelessly to get Citizens United on the books as a law are really loving what’s being done by Mitt Romney right now. It was recently reported that Mitt will more than likely be the first presidential candidate to out raise a sitting president in a presidential campaign since the beginning of this great republic.
With billionaire after billionaire helping to raise funds for Mitt, Barack is looking at some hard times down the stretch, when Romney might be able to outspend him in key battleground states and pull out a few miracles courtesy of his magic underwear.
I still think that Barack is going to beat him handily as long as Eric Holder and his team put an end to the voter suppression being done by the GOP. But a Barack victory, as beautiful as it may be, comes with some ugly consequences.
There are two scenarios that will play out during this election cycle and both are good for the GOP and the Citizens United ruling. It’s a win/win for Conservatives no matter what happens in November.
Scenario 1 – If Mitt Romney raises more money than Barack Obama and gets elected citizens United will never come close to being overturned because the Supreme Court Justices that retire during the next 4 years will be replaced by more conservatives and there is no way that they will overturn the ruling. There needs to be a left leaning court to get the decision reversed and the only way that will happen is if Barack wins again. So if Mitt wins, Citizens United wins.
Scenario 2 – Mitt out raises Barack and loses anyway, which I personally think is going to happen. But if Mitt raises more money than Barack and loses, every conservative pundit from here to Mars is going to go on the offensive, and when they go on the offensive they make sure that everybody uses the same talking points relentlessly. And that talking point is going to be; “if Citizens United was as bad as Liberals claim it is, and we need to get the money out of politics, why did Mitt lose?” This would be the best thing that happened for the ruling because it will show that money can’t buy elections and that the people still vote for who they want to vote for.
With both of these scenarios, Conservatives and the Citizens United ruling win. The only thing that may get it overturned is a Barack victory and the appointment of Liberal leaning justices in his next term. Regardless of a win, it’s still going to be hard to do anything with the law because there’s no way they will let it go down without a fight, and they have billions and billions of dollars at their disposal to make sure everyone with a TV or radio will hear something about why overturning Citizen United is bad for America or how it will, as they say, kill jobs.
The real ramifications of Citizens United will be felt on a state level and we can see it happening now. Every GOP lead state is passing voter repression laws and crippling unions at the bequest of billionaires who want to make more money while hiring fewere people. So while Republicons are claiming that the ruling doesn’t effect the outcome of an election they’ll be buying every Governors seat in America (see Wisconsin) and passing law after law to suppress voter turnout in those states, so they can help rich people get richer, all thanks to Citizens United.