The kind of corruption the media talk about, the kind the Supreme Court was concerned about, involves the putative sale of votes in exchange for campaign contributions.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
In rendering its decision in our case, the Supreme Court equated money with speech because these days it takes the first to make yourself heard.
Public scandals are America's favorite parlor sport. Learning about the flaws and misdeeds of the rich and famous seems to satisfy our egalitarian yearnings.
Well, the role of money in politics is pretty corrupting right now.
Politicians are trying to attract people to issues.
For conservative leaders, making candidates pay them court, publicly and ostentatiously, is a colossal source of their symbolic power before their followers. It's kabuki theater, mostly.
The solution to voters potentially being misled by a judicial candidate's political speech is more speech - not government censorship.
What people fail to appreciate is that the currency of corruption in elective office is, not money, but votes.
In post-Vietnam, post-Watergate America, skeptical voters demand full disclosure of everything from candidates' finances to their medical records, and spin-savvy accounts of backstage machinations dominate political coverage.
At the end of the day, money is just a proxy for votes. That is what makes politics so vulnerable to social media.
I can tell you that too much money is corrupting American politics. Don't blame the American public. The U.S. Supreme Court has a lot to answer for, because it has made it impossible for Congress to reduce the corrupting influence of money on American political life.