After endorsing McKenna for governor, the Seattle Times not eager to find those helping buy the state for him

Having endorsed the very unmoderate empty-suit Republican Rob McKenna for governor—whose only experience as a lawmaker was his divisive, unproductive stint on the King County Council where he remained fixated on taxes and opposition to light rail, and whose only notable “accomplishment” as state attorney general was to add his name to the anti-healthcare reform movement—the Seattle Times is either silent on or misrepresenting the way that Republican campaign donors have been pouring money into the state in order to buy the Washington governor’s election. The only article I found (on-line, not in print), tried to say that both the McKenna and Democrat Jay Inslee have a similar amount of funds in their campaign coffers. But that was only true partly because the Times didn’t find—or didn’t look for—any Republican donors in the state, and didn’t take into consideration the potential for millions in secret donations masquerading as “social welfare” and other “contributions” that are unreported as campaign contributions, which the wealthy supporters of Republicans have become very good at, particularly since the U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United decision.

Instead, the Times had to combine both in-state and out-of-state donors for Inslee against only a partial finding of the out-of-state donors for McKenna to come-up with “parity.” Those numbers that the Times did deign to “find” are telling: The out-of-state donors to McKenna’s campaign—including the Koch brothers—have donated three-times the amount of money that Inslee’s campaign has received. The larger in-state donations Inslee has received are from mainly organizations interested in the public good—apparently those donating to the McKenna campaign prefer to remain “confidential,” both in who they are and the amounts they are giving. In the wake the Citizens United decision, the wealthy and corporate right-wing are finding ever more new and creative ways in which to hide both their influence on elections, and their intentions; this is not, of course, within the purview of the Times' "intentions."

It was admitted that the Karl Rove machine hasn’t been accounted for, and other usually generous right-wing PACs haven’t “returned their calls”—I wonder why—but there is little doubt that in the last few weeks to the run-up to election day we will see many more attack ads like the one the Republican Governors Association has been running non-stop on TV and on the radio, accusing Inslee of voting for an $800 billion program that didn’t create jobs and a “massive tax hike” on small businesses. These ads have very little validity; in 2010, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office concluded that the 2009 stimulus program had an effect on the addition of up to 3.6 million jobs. On the other hand, the so-called “tax hike” in the first instance refers to the clause in the health care reform act which “penalizes” employers who do not offer health care benefits to employees. However, it is not “small businesses” which are affected as insinuated in the ad, but those that employ fifty or more people; businesses that employ fifty or more people are likely to receive deeper discounts from insurers than those with only a handful or less employees—which insurers treat like “individuals.” The “message” of the ad—delivered in a condescending tone by a white female with an extremely irritating voice—was so obviously biased and without substance that it was not likely to fool anyone but those already pre-disposed to it; but if it was the tone that impacted the listener, then there is always the possibility of persuading a voter willing to direct his or her frustration and anger in the direction the ad wants them to go—even if it is clearly against their best interest.

But this is not just going on in Washington. According to a discussion with a democracy for the people advocate Trevor Potter—a former campaign staffer for Sen. John McCain—on Bill Moyers’ public radio show a few weeks ago, the money trail is well hidden, and countless PACs and “non-profit” organizations appear overnight with only a P.O. box and one person on their "board of directors"; they are not even required to report their existence, how much money they “donated” and what it was used for until after an election. On Comedy Central’s “Colbert Report,” Potter guided host Stephen Colbert through the process of creating your own “Super PAC”—or a tax-free secret campaign fund that no one knows exists, masquerading as a non-profit “social welfare” organization known under the IRS tax code as a 501(c)(4):

Colbert: So how do I gets me one, Trevor?

Potter: Well, lawyers often form Delaware corporations, which we call shell corporations, that just sit there until they're needed.

Colbert: Like, so some anonymous shell corporation?

Potter: Right. And, and I happen to have one here in my briefcase.

Colbert: Let's see it. Okay, what's it called?

Potter: It's called, “Anonymous Shell Corporation.”

Colbert: “Anonymous Shell Corporation” filed in Delaware? Okay, I got this. So now, now I have a (c)(4)?

Potter: Right. Now we need to turn it into your shell corporation, your anonymous one. And we do that by having normally a board of directors meeting.

Colbert: And who's on the board of directors?

Potter: Well, just you. We can just have you do this--

Colbert: Sounds like a nice group of people.

Potter: So--

Colbert: All right, called to order. Let's do this thing.

Potter: All right, so this says that you are the sole director of the corporation.

Colbert: I am.

Potter: And that you are now electing yourself president, secretary, and treasurer.

Colbert: Sounds like a great board.

Potter: And you are authorizing the corporation to file the papers with the I.R.S. in May, 2013.

Colbert: So I could get money for my (c)(4), use that for political purposes, and nobody knows anything about it till six months after the election?

Potter: That's right. And even then, they won't know who your donors are.

Colbert: That's my kind of campaign finance restriction.

Many of these shell companies, in order to avoid disclosing their donors and how much money they have received, call themselves non-profit “social welfare” groups. An environmental group putting out ads opposing a candidate with a poor environmental record is a “social welfare” organization; but these almost all new right-wing “social welfare” organizations only appear months before an election, and disappear just as quickly after the election. They hope never to explain what their purpose was. They have no agenda save to defeat or elect a candidate using the current talking points about health care, taxes and the deficit. These all could be classified as “social welfare” issues under certain circumstances, but the fact is that in context they are meant to have nothing to do “social welfare.” The irony is that a nameless donor can contribute millions of dollars as a tax-free “gift” that will be used to defeat “social welfare” programs.  

Trade organizations, like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce are also non-profits that do not have to disclose their donors, although one assumes they know who they would be. But the American Petroleum Institute—an umbrella organization that lobbies for hundreds of oil companies and their subsidiaries—funnel part of Big Oil’s hundreds of billions of dollars in profit into political campaign ads that no one knows from whom or how much, solely to the purpose of advancing their own goal of gaining more profit and reducing even more the regulation that could have prevented the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico; of the “public welfare,” they have no interest.  

The above mentioned anti-Inslee ad claimed that it was not “endorsed by any candidate for governor.” Potter would deride this kind of hypocrisy, noting that court decisions that claimed that Super PACs are “totally independent” of candidates is “baloney.” These organizations are buying “access” to candidates, and they are not “independent” of what the candidate they are supporting wishes, becoming virtual “shadow party committees.” They all have “great names” like the “Government Integrity Fund”—and that is just enough to fool voters into thinking they actually have the public interest in mind without asking questions about who and what they are. And what they are trying to “buy.”

Moyers—one of the few journalists still alive from the Edward R, Murrow school of journalistic integrity—noted that The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza reported that “pro-Romney outside groups have paid for three out of four of the ads supporting him in this election cycle while pro-Obama outside groups have paid for one in every five ads backing the president. The conservative groups, Cillizza writes, ‘have kept Romney in the game’ and he should be able to ‘outspend Obama rather significantly in the final weeks of the race.’ So whether you want to call it an arms race, a plague of Biblical proportions, or the death spiral of democracy, take it seriously.” 

The Seattle Times’ endorsement of a Republican whose only apparent “qualification” is that he looks like a “nerd” while taking-up space in an office room is indicative of this newspaper’s preference for attacking people trying to be public-spirited citizens—like William Gates Sr. and Chris Hansen—while supporting candidates and “causes” that tend to make the problems the state faces even more unbearable for its most vulnerable citizens and institutions. Its refusal to reveal the full extent of the right’s attempt to buy the state for McKenna and his one-percent cronies is also indicative its complicity against democracy for and by the people.