Desperate times call for desperate measures, and it’s increasingly clear that Democrats are desperate indeed as election day draws near. How else to explain the wild charges leveled by President Obama, David Axelrod, and the Democratic National Committee accusing Republicans and the Tea Party movement of using foreign money to influence the next election? The accusation is all the more ridiculous when one considers that one of the supposed conduits for foreign cash is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber and other business organizations like the National Federation of Independent Business and the National Association of Manufacturers are certainly doing their best to defeat Democrats this election cycle and who can blame them? The abysmal climate for business and industry that this administration has created is deeply troubling to anyone involved in those vital sectors. But the idea that any organization dedicated to promoting growth within America’s private sector would secretly use its funds to undermine its very reason for being is ludicrous.
“So, groups that receive foreign money are spending huge sums to influence American elections, and they won’t tell you where the money for their ads come from,” Obama said. David Axelrod dutifully parroted the Left’s latest conspiracy theory as well: “It appears they’re even taking secret foreign money to influence our elections,” he said. In addition to the Chamber, the president trotted out one of the Left’s favorite whipping boys, Republican strategist Karl Rove, for special attention. Rove stands accused of “funding and advising” two groups that have been working to help GOP candidate Mark Kirk defeat the Democrat Alexi Giannoulias in the election to fill Obama’s old Senate seat. Reviving the specter of Rove is yet another sign of Democratic desperation. For the Left, Rove was one of the biggest boogiemen of the Bush administration and invoking his dreaded name is nothing more than a blatant attempt to distract voters from the disastrous policies that Obama, Pelosi, and Reid have shoved down America’s throat over the last two years.
These attacks reveal much more about the Democratic mindset than they do about conservatives and Republicans. Democrats think in terms of back-room deals and shadowy conspiracies because that’s so often the way they themselves operate. Fundraising for the Democratic Party has been likened to a huge money-laundering operation, with good reason. Lest we forget, let’s take a moment to recall where the cash came from to elect this president in the first place.
Goldman Sachs contributed almost one million dollars to the Obama campaign, securing the number two position on the president’s donor list during the 2008 election. The financial giant was of course one of the biggest beneficiaries of the big bailout and several ex-employees of the firm now serve in the administration.
The single biggest sector contributing to the president’s election was the legal profession. All told, lawyers and law firms provided over $43 million in funds to Obama during the 2008 campaign. No part of our economy – with the notable exception of government employees – will benefit more from an administration that routinely passes bills that run into the thousands of pages, expand regulatory authority on an almost daily basis, and have done nothing to rein in frivolous lawsuits than the legal profession.
The public sector, most notably through the Service Employees International Union, strongly supported Obama’s campaign. They have been richly rewarded. About one third of stimulus dollars were spent on protecting public sector jobs and, as a result, unemployment in the public sector has barely suffered any decline even as the private sector – the segment of our economy that is most important to our continued prosperity – has suffered.
So-called charitable organizations have poured millions upon millions of donations to covertly support leftist causes and Democratic candidates. The most notorious of these is the Tides Foundation, which funneled multi-millions to support ACORN and other leftist front groups during the 2008 election.
Politics is and always has been a dirty game. Does the GOP accept donations from organizations that hope to influence public policy in a direction that would benefit the bottom line of their members? Of course it does. That’s the nature of the beast. Our system of governance is built upon the principal that competing self-interests will ultimately produce the best results. Republicans and Democrats alike tacitly, if not openly, acknowledge that particular bit of wisdom emanating from our Founding Fathers by accepting contributions from individuals and organizations that have something to gain if the party they support wins power. There is nothing nefarious about letting those scenarios play out.
It is only when one party or another attempts to assume a position that is effectively beyond criticism that we should start to worry. In terms of the 2010 election, Democrats are desperately trying to regain the moral high ground. They should not be allowed to do so. America’s problems are not about foreign despots trying to tear apart the fabric of our nation. Instead, the most pressing issues involve just how willing the Left is to destroy the freedom of opportunity and the freedom to fail that are, in concert, so vital to our system of governance.
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