The Democrats’ Latest Ploy

[ErnstBlofeld]

The National Review/Andrew Stiles:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recently said Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission is the primary cause behind Democrats’ midterm woes. Without an influx of corporate money on behalf of the GOP, she told the Huffington Post, “we were really pretty confident about winning the election. We still are. But this makes it harder.” Right, and Charlie Crist’s biggest problem is his throwing arm.

Democrats have been in a fuss ever since the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United earlier this year. Even though the Democratic party has outraised and outspent the GOP by considerable margins thus far, when it comes to outside interest groups, Republican allies are outspending their Democratic counterparts nearly seven-to-one
The initial Democratic response to Citizens United was to try to pass a bill — the Disclose Act — that would have essentially undone much of the court’s decision. It cleared the House in June but fizzled in the Senate. Just last month, it failed a second time to obtain cloture. Now, with their electoral prospects looking increasingly dim, Democrats and their liberal allies have launched an all-out assault on the nonprofit and third-party interest groups supporting Republicans in this election, facts — and hypocrisy — be damned.

Several days after the Disclose Act failed its second cloture vote, Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus (D., Mont.) wrote a letter to the IRS urging an investigation of several Republican-allied groups, notably Crossroads GPS, a nonprofit tied to GOP heavyweights Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie. Baucus said he was prepared to take “appropriate legislative action,” based on the IRS findings.