From daveManuel.com :
What is a “superPAC”? What is the definition of the term “superPAC”?
The “superPAC” is a relatively new beast that emerged as a result of two court rulings, including an important 2010 ruling by the Supreme Court.
The “superPAC”, which is officially known as an “independent expenditure-only committee”, has become an increasingly popular method of influence for special interest groups.
The “superPAC” is like a traditional PAC (Political Action Committee) without many of the restrictions. For instance, a “superPAC” can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money for the sole purpose of supporting or opposing political candidates.
A “superPAC” can directly attack a political candidate. The only caveat is that a “superPAC” is not allowed to coordinate directly with candidates or political parties.
The “superPAC” will be an extremely crucial part of the 2012 Presidential election.
Where does this money come from and why isn’t the alarm sounding because someone other than the voters are influencing our elections? Surely these aren’t individuals. Is a super pac a corporation? A union? A special intest group?
I do not like this phenomena.
A Super-Pac seems unAmerican to me. Am I alone having these thoughts?
A more troubling option is that it could be a foreign country wanting to direct our elections to a “friendly” candidate. We have got to find a way to get rid of large money influence on our elections.Either government funding or small donations from citizens.
The conservative Supreme Court says that these organizations have the same rights as people. There;s nothing we can do about it.
Ironically, the largest beneficiary of these PACs is the hated moderate candidate, Mitt Romney.
@Starryflights
Don’t forget that BOTH sides use superpacs.
http://obamasuperpac.com/
Both sides need to STOP using super pacs. There needs to be immediate federal legislation to make this practice illegal. Why do we want others controlling our elections. Super pacs make the term ‘we the people’ obsolete.
We have basically turned our elections over to corporations, special interest groups, unions and foreign countries.
And then “they” worry about the fact that really good, intelligent people do not care to run for office!!! In today’s America, you’ve gotta have MONEY to run for office, even for seat on small towns’ Town Councils.
I guess we will see how the SuperPAC’s are after this election cycle. Sad that an entity can do all the negative campaigning that it wants to do, and does not have to reveal the donors or source of funds. It has a real corruption element to it.
I wonder if Fox could be considered a SuperPAC – I think they are going to drop the News from their logo, and replace it with Romney Defender – every time I turn it on, someone is on the program defending Romney – and not really talking about any other candidate.
@Pat, agreed regarding the corruption element.
Pat, if Fox is a super pac for Romney, what would you consider the other networks for Obama? Especially MSNBC?
Cargo, MSNBC does lean Democratic but they still do legitimate interviews with both Republican and Democrat supporters as opposed to Fox’s ” Faux News” which is probably scripted and aimed at promoting the subject.
Bear is right. No one could be more Republican these days than Morning Joe, also. He is getting to be a pain in the ass about it.