Purell, Mr. President?

Many politicians have “dirty hands.” I know what you may be thinking…politicians are typically a pretty well-groomed group. But no, I’m talking about Michael Walzer’s term from Political Action: The Problem of Dirty Hands, I generally agree with the difficult decisions that the President has made throughout the past four years. He strives to uphold campaign promises. I admire how he much he has achieved in office while still remaining within the bounds of his executive powers. This is especially commendable considering that many Congressional Republicans view inhibiting Obama’s success as their top priority. I’m always the first in a room to jump to his defense, citing the delicate balance he has struck between trying to accomplish his political agenda while upholding moral principles and the law.

However, even I must admit that President Obama’s has dirtied his hands as a result of his 2012 Presidential campaign decision to accept former staffers and campaign officials to run a pro-Obama Super PAC. For those who aren't familiar with Super PACs, here’s a brief run-down on what they are and how they work.

Stephen Colbert even made a Super PAC, but his hands aren’t dirty…he would have to believe they’re immoral for that to happen.

Photo courtesy of Cliff

Basically, the controversy mentioned in the video boils down to this: “The Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United was a vindication, the majority said, of the First Amendment’s most basic free speech principle — that the government has no business regulating political speech. The dissenters said allowing corporate money to flood the political marketplace will corrupt democracy.”2 So how can the President have dirty hands if, like the video says, the Supreme Court ruled in the Citizens United case that Super PACs are legal?

President Obama needs a Wet Wipe. 

Photo courtesy of U.S. Embassy Jakarta, Indonesia

Let’s look back to the 2008 Presidential campaign. John McCain’s campaign spent $227.7 million. Barack Obama’s campaign spent $740.6 million, more than the campaigns of John Kerry and George W. Bush combined. There was an aggregate spending of $1.7 billion by all candidates in the ’08 election. Neither campaign was endorsed by Super PACs.3 At that time, Super PACs weren’t on the general public’s radar. Despite the lack of Super PAC support, both sides were still able to raise record-breaking sums of money. Long after the election was over, both men denounced the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision to deem Super PACs as constitutional.

John McCain said of Super PACs, "I condemn them on all sides. [...] I condemn the United States Supreme Court for their naivety in the Citizens versus United (sic) decision, which is an outrage. […] There is too much money washing around politics.”4

"What the Supreme Court did was a combination of arrogance, naiveté, and stupidity, the likes of which I've never seen." -John McCain

Photo courtesy of United States Congress

Barack Obama arguably went even further, taking his disdain for the court’s ruling to one of the most public arenas possible: the State of the Union. (Skip to 2:15).

Could President Obama and John McCain work together to start an initiative against Super PACs? 

Photo courtesy of Pete Souza, official White House Photographer

So why are President Obama’s hands dirty? Well this time around, as I wrote earlier, his campaign decided to (gasp!) completely change their tactic. The campaign decided that, despite his moral hesitations, continuing to refuse the assistance of Super PACs would harm President Obama’s reelection chances. Here’s what Obama campaign manager Jim Messina had to say about it (You can read the full statement here. Seriously, do it.)

This cycle, our campaign has to face the reality of the law as it currently stands. […] With so much at stake, we can't allow for two sets of rules in this election whereby the Republican nominee is the beneficiary of unlimited spending and Democrats unilaterally disarm. Therefore, the campaign has decided to do what we can, consistent with the law, to support Priorities USA in its effort to counter the weight of the GOP Super PAC. We will do so only in the knowledge and with the expectation that all of its donations will be fully disclosed as required by law to the Federal Election Commission.

Looks like President Obama may have gotten his own Etch-a-Sketch…

Photo courtesy of Etcha

Or, in essence, “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.”5 I imagine that President Obama’s reaction to this necessary change in tactic elicited a response similar to how Walzer describes a politician who obtains dirty hands in the article mentioned earlier: “He is extremely reluctant even to consider the deal, puts off his aides when they remind him of it, refuses to calculate its possible effects upon the campaign [...] Because he has scruples of this sort, We know him to be a good man [...]We know he is doing right when he makes the deal because he knows he is doing wrong.”

To give you an idea of why President Obama found Super PACs to be immoral, let’s look at some data of where their money comes from. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the top 100 individual Super PAC donors in 2011–2012 made up just 3.7% of contributors, but accounted for more than 80% of the total money raised. Additionally, since they are not allowed to coordinate strategies with or have official ties to a candidate, Super PACs are not subject to the same accountability standards for outlandish claims made in their ads than the campaigns themselves would be. Not to mention the fact that the sheer amount of money pouring into these PACs may make candidates feel obligated to repay the special interest groups who are providing the cash by favoring them in their policies and legislation. According to NBC News ad-trackers, the pro-Romney Restore Our Future Super PAC has spent $73 million on the general election and the pro-Obama Super PAC Priorities USA has spent $52.7 million.6

As Paul S. Ryan, an attorney at the Campaign Legal Center, says, 

We've had a small group of donors maintain the viability of certain candidates. […] It's an Alice in Wonderland situation. It defies logic. […]American elections are funded by a very narrow range of special interests, and that has the effect of making our democracy look a lot more like a plutocracy.7

Super PACs and Alice in Wonderland: where conventional logic simply does not exist. 

Photo courtesy of Walt Disney

But, at the end of the day, the single act of allowing his former strategists and aides to create this Super PAC is not what has dirtied President Obama’s hands. What matters is that the President once clearly opposed them based on his moral principles, and has since come to accept their support without acknowledging a change in his morals. Therefore, we can deduce that he still has a moral issue with Super PACs, but has had to succumb to accepting them out of necessity. If he had not allowed Priorities USA Action to support him, the current Presidential race would have been unfair. And, after all, Walzer says, “No one succeeds in politics without getting his hands dirty.”

President Obama recognizes that, while he may morally oppose Super PACs, their support was necessary to level the attack advertisements’ playing field. As Walzer writes, “He has purposes in mind, causes and projects that require the support and redound to the benefit, not of each of us individually, but of all of us together. He hustles, lies, and intrigues for us-or so he claims.” From President Obama’s point of view, his reelection is what is best for the prosperity of this country. Therefore, if he needed to accept the immoral assistance of Super PACs in order to achieve that goal, it is acceptable for him to dirty his hands, seeing as how it is in the country’s own best interest.

I postponed posting this with the hope that the Presidential debates would include the most popular questions from Google Moderator, a site where constituents could post their questions for the candidates, and people voted certain questions “up” and “down” the list in accordance with how strongly they desired to hear the candidates’ answers.

Many questions referred to Citizens United. One of the most “Voted Up” questions was, with 2,009 votes, “If elected, will you support a constitutional amendment to effectively reverse Citizens United v. F.E.C. and create realistic campaign finance reform that will eliminate all corporate money from all elections?” from Robbie in Connecticut.

Although the issue of Super PACs is by no means a hotly contested issue in the election itself, I think it would have been valuable for both candidates to have been put on the spot, forcing them to justify why they have allowed special interest groups to pour money into the Super PACs. 

Raise your hand if you want more money

Photo courtesy of VOA

This discussion isn’t over. In order for President Obama to regain my full respect on this issue, he needs to attempt to clean off his hands. If President Obama is reelected, he needs to make a concerted effort to promote legislation that will limit the effect that Super PACs, and even money in general, can affect elections. America isn’t supposed to be a country where one person’s voice drowns out another’s because they have more money than them.

So what do you think? Are Super PACs immoral? Can President Obama really justify the necessity of Super PAC support? Do you agree that Super PACs are bad? If so, what could President Obama do to clean off his hands?