Subject: [EL] anti-Peter DeFazio TV ad
From: Richard Winger
Date: 9/25/2010, 7:02 PM
To: "election-law@mailman.lls.edu" <election-law@mailman.lls.edu>
Reply-to:
"richardwinger@yahoo.com"

Thanks to Rick Hasen, we have all now seen the Washington Post story about the TV ad against Oregon Democratic congressman Peter DeFazio, which has many people in a righteous wrath against the fact that no one knows who is paying for those ads, which say, "Career politicians like Peter DaFazio and Nancy Pelosi made a mess of our economy", and also alleges that the magic bullet for prosperity is low taxes.

It seems to me the Democratic Party and its allies are capable of making an effective TV ad that counters those ideas.  And if a truly effective and persuasive ad were to come into existence, and to be used by Peter DeFazio and Democrats generally, it wouldn't be so important to know who is making the pro-Republican ad.

Milton Friedman-type ideas have circulated widely in this country, and they have really taken root in popular opinion in the US.  No one seems to be effectively conveying the message (on TV, anyway) that high taxes can help build a good and a prosperous society (the experience of western and central Europe shows that this idea is a plausible hypothesis).  Democrats are not engaging in the war of ideas.  So instead they fixate on stopping messages that upset them.  And it is downright dishonest for Congressman DeFazio to blame Citizens United for the fact that no one knows who is running the ads that attack him.  As DeFazio says, no one even knows if they are being paid for by a corporation, or an individual.  If they are being paid for by an individual, or an unincorporated association, then Citizens United had nothing to do with the fact that these ads exist.