The Hill reports this morning that “[h]undreds of Colbert’s super-PAC members emailed commission Secretary Shawn Werth to urge more regulation of super-PACs, documents published Wednesday on the commission website show.”
According to the Hill, this “illustrates the fact that even more Americans are frustrated, this time, with loopholes in the campaign fundraising process. It also shows how translating legalese and connecting individuals outside the Beltway with the right resources can produce more voter action.”
We’d focus our attention on that little phrase, “with the right resources.”
Exactly. Mr. Colbert’s television antics appear to have inspired a rash of democratic, grassroots activity. But Mr. Colbert’s efforts have been successful only because Mr. Colbert has a national television show (something most of us don’t have, even if our political beliefs are better grounded and more informed than Mr. Colbert’s) and the resources of a large corporation, Viacom, behind him, paying the legal bills and providing the medium for his message.
As CCP cop-founder Steve Hoersting notes, that makes it more or less official: “Colbert has proven that corporate funded speech can spur valuable grassroots activism. That’s pretty much the holding in Citizens United.”
