Super for democracy?

By W.W. | IOWA CITY

SHELDON ADELSON, a billionaire casino tycoon, is reportedly set to fritter away another $10m on the Newt Gingrich-affiliated Winning the Future superPAC. Foster Friess, a fabulously rich stock-picker and Santorum-supporting superPac backer, recently made waves with a dumb old joke about the prophylactic qualities of an aspirin held fast between a lady's knees. After weeks of sleepless nights, a heavy-hearted Barack Obama recently endorsed an affiliated superPAC with the greatest imaginable reluctance, and will no doubt bitterly regret every cent it spends on his behalf. Of course you know that Stephen Colbert, America's greatest political satirist, has his own superPAC. And now some folks claiming the mantle of Occupy Wall Street (OWS) have started a superPAC to help support ideologically congenial candidates.

The Citizens United decision, which spawned the superPAC, was hailed by some on the left as the death-knell of democracy. Maybe in the end we'll see mega-bucks buying the election through a barrage of brainwashing TV spots. But so far, Mr Adelson's mega-bucks have helped keep the heat on Mitt Romney, even if it hasn't much helped Mr Gingrich. Rick Perry poured millions into buying prime airtime and came up dry as west Texas. Team Romney has outspent Team Santorum to the tune of tens of millions, but that hasn't kept Mr Santorum from taking the lead both nationally and in Mr Romney's native Michigan. We'll see if Mr Romney's planned anti-Santorum ad blitz in Michigan will help him snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Mr Santorum has rather less baggage to unpack than did Mr Gingrich, so I have my doubts. Thus far, the GOP contest seems to support (the real) Schumpeter's timeless adage that "The picture of the prettiest girl that ever lived will in the long run prove powerless to maintain the sales of a bad cigarette."

Meanwhile, Mr Colbert's satirical superPAC and the burgeoning OWS superPAC offer us a glimmer of the democratic promise of unlimited spending on political speech. We of the 99% don't have Adelson- or Friess-sized fortunes to throw around. But, as Mr Colbert demonstrated, a bunch of people donating small sums can raise a goodly chunk of change and use it effectively to make a point, even if the point is that Super PACs are absurd. As unaffiliated activists get the hang of their new corporate freedoms, I predict we'll see an efflorescence of creative political speech: documentaries, viral videos, inventively powerful commercials, and plenty more beyond the reach of prediction. The wealthiest among us are always best able to work around onerous regulations. The Citizens United decision's deregulation of spending on campaign-season political speech certainly did make it simpler for billionaires to throw money at candidates, but it also makes it much easier for the rest of us to pool our resources and talents in the service of saying what we want to say, the way we want to say it, about the politicians bidding to rule us. So get cracking, people.