Rich and Ruthless

Published May 1, 2014

by Gary Pearce, Talking About Politics, April 30, 2014.

Democrats contemplating a comeback need to contemplate this. The Republican Party is spending at least $650,000 on “a blistering attack”against Justice Robin Hudson of the state Supreme Court.

 

Democrats need to face a sobering reality: They are up against a rich and ruthless opponent, one who will spend any amount and say anything to seize and hold power.

 

You can whine about it, you can complain about money in politics or you can hope that nobody believes an ad that accuses Hudson “of siding with child molesters.”

 

None of that does any good. There is only one solution, one antidote to the Pope-Koch Axis of Evil. Some rich, hard-headed individual who cares about North Carolina needs to step up, see what works and put up the seed money.

 

What works are independent-expenditure ads that destroy the opponent. That’s what politics has come to, like it or not.

 

Art Pope learned that lesson. For 20 years, he pumped millions into the John Locke Foundation. He got nowhere. Starting in 2010, he pumped millions into independent campaigns, and he started winning.

 

This is not rocket science. But it’s expensive, and it’s a rough game.

 http://www.talkingaboutpolitics.com

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May 1, 2014 at 11:22 am
TP Wohlford says:

Art Pope lives rent-free in Pearce's head.

Aside from the corrections in Pope's piece, let me add that the GOP hardly has the advantage in dirty nasty ads, nor has this been a new thing.

I lived thru a steady diet of "throw grandma from the cliff" ads in 2010 in an attempt to save the MI-7 Congressional seat, for instance. I couldn't even do YouTube videos w/o seeing one, which got very funny when I watched a video on a very embarrassing female issue.

I was also in a media center AT A SPORTING EVENT about 10 days before the Mother Jones / Romney / 47% quote was made public. Guess what? We all heard it there, and it was obvious there was a coordinated attempt to pass along the meme that "Romney will take away your welfare check." Gathered illegally, coordinated, and untrue -- and put into constant ads in NC prior to the 2012 election.

So when a Dem complains about dirty ads paid for by billionaires, I have to laugh.

May 2, 2014 at 11:36 am
Richard Bunce says:

On the other hand they have no problem with a candidate promising large groups of voters government services and benefits to be paid for by smaller groups of voters... running an ad no one may pay attention to and funded by voluntary contributions is bad while direct vote buying using the coercive power of government to fund it is good.

May 1, 2014 at 11:56 am
Tom Hauck says:

Thank you for an interesting but misguided and factually incorrect column.

First of all, as Mr. Art Pope wrote to you, saying your monetary amounts are incorrect as is the thrust of your bitterness. See his column which you correctly printed.

Secondly, the nonliberal or nonprogressive (choose your favorite word) side must donate money for paid advertising to overcome incorrect columns such as this one or the far left or heavily biased to the left (choose your favorite words) editorials, about this subject, such as in the Raleigh N & O today (May 1).

Thankfully Art Pope and likeminded citizens have the resources to keep both sides of the discussion in front of the public, rather than having the public airways and major printed media flood us with misinformation.

Thank you Mr. Pope.

May 1, 2014 at 6:23 pm
Richard Bunce says:

You hold voters in such low esteem... how is it that enlightened folks like you do not fall victim to these ads?