Punting the Pundits

Tom Friedman of the New York Times is at it again, claiming that what America needs to fix our economic and political mess is a radically centrist third party. Radical in this case means conservative when it comes to belt-tightening. Friedman in Sunday’s Times urges a third party “to fill the space between the conservative Santorum (or even Mitt Romney) and the left-of-center Barack Obama.”

Friedman has written this column before.

This time, he has a coyly undeclared candidate, David Walker, formerly president of the austerity-mongering Peter G. Peterson Foundation. Walker, who served in a previous life as head of the Government Accountability Office, has been barnstorming around the country, denying that he is running for anything, blaming America’s woes on Social Security, Medicare, and Federal deficits. [..]

Austerity, as we see in Europe, is absolutely the wrong economic policy. It feeds on itself, driving the economy deeper into a hole. As GDP sags, wages and tax receipts sag with it, making budget balance a vanishing mirage. The more you cut the deficit, the more the economy falters, and the cycle repeats.

The combination of bad economic advice, a ballot slot bought and paid for by secretive private equity and hedge fund players, and a candidate who became a media figure courtesy of Peter G. Peterson, epitomizes everything messed up about our politics. How fitting that Tom Friedman should be its tribune.

George Monbiot: We Need to Know Who Funds These Thinktank Lobbyists

The battle for democracy is becoming a fight against backroom billionaires seeking to shape politics to suit their own interests

Shocking, fascinating, entirely unsurprising: the leaked documents, if authentic, confirm what we suspected but could not prove. The Heartland Institute, which has helped lead the war against climate science in the United States, is funded among others by tobacco firms, fossil fuel companies and one of the billionaire Koch brothers. [..]

The leading Republican candidates have all but abandoned the idea of mobilising popular support. Instead they use the huge funds they raise from billionaires to attack the credibility of their opponents through television ads. Yet more money is channelled through 501c4 groups – tax-exempt bodies supposedly promoting social welfare – which (unlike the superPACs) don’t have to reveal the identity of their donors. TomDispatch notes that “serving as a secret slush fund for billionaires evidently now qualifies as social welfare.” [..]

This is plutocracy, pure and simple. The battle for democracy is now a straight fight against the billionaires and corporations reshaping politics to suit their interests. The first task of all democrats must be to demand that any group, of any complexion, seeking to effect political change should reveal its funders.

John Nichols: David Koch Admits to Helping Walker Big-Time

Billionaire campaign donor David Koch, heir to a fortune and a political legacy created by one of the driving forces behind the John Birch Society, makes no secret of his enthusiasm for Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.

“What Scott Walker is doing with the public unions in Wisconsin is critically important. He’s an impressive guy and he’s very courageous,” Koch explained in a recent conversation reported by the Palm Beach Post. “If the unions win the recall, there will be no stopping union power.”

That’s no surprise. What is surprising is that Koch now appears to be bragging about how he and his brother Charles are using their vast fortune to fund an independent campaign aimed at “helping” Walker. Even in an era when billionaires such as the Kochs are emerging as key financiers of super PACs and other campaign vehicles, Koch’s admission will raise eyebrows – and questions about whether inappropriate coordination by a candidate, his campaign and a supposedly independent group might be the stuff of “scandal.”

Eugene Robinson: Rick Santorum could take Republicans down with him

Republicans haven’t quite thrown away what they see as a winnable presidential election, at least not yet. But they’re trying their best.

In GOP circles, there is more than a whiff of panic in the air. Unemployment is still painfully high, Americans remain dissatisfied with the country’s direction, even the most favorable polls show President Obama’s approval at barely 50 percent – and yet there is a sense that the Republicans’ odds of winning back the White House grow longer day by day. [..]

The issue, for Republicans, is not just that Santorum would lose in November. It’s that he could be a drag on House and Senate candidates as well. Imagine, say, Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) trying to explain to his constituents why someone who doesn’t fully understand women’s participation in the workforce should be president.

Listen closely and you can hear the anguished cries: “Mitch! Chris! Jeb! Help!”

Ben Adler: Conservatives’ War on Women’s Sexuality

If you have been surprised to see an uptight prig such as Rick Santorum leading the Republican primary field in national polls, you shouldn’t be. Recent events have demonstrated that conservative positions on social issues are as much about repressing women and reversing the gains of the women’s movement as they are about saving the lives of the unborn.

The young people I saw at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington the week before last looked to me exactly like what you would expect from a bunch of college Republicans. They were dorks. They wore suits. Maybe some of the women’s suit skirts were short, but I was hardly scandalized.

But we learned last week that much of the conservative movement is still living in a different century-and I don’t mean the twentieth-with regard to women’s sexuality. Conservative bloggers were horrified that some young women at CPAC were dressed provocatively and engaged in loose sexual behavior with the young men in attendance.