By Dan Glickman

The Huffington Post

Feb. 15, 2012

This new reality isn't just affecting Republicans. Last week, President Obama's campaign team faced the music of a post-Citizens United election. President Obama's Campaign Manager, Jim Messina, said that Democrats cannot "unilaterally disarm" in the face of Republican super PACs. In order to stay competitive in the "arms race" of campaign finance, President Obama's own super PAC, Priorities USA, scheduled just a dozen meetings with Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, business leaders and finance executives. The message is clear: each candidate, including the incumbent President, needs a golden goose to compete.

Presidential elections aren't the only campaigns being affected by Citizens United. Given the lower sums necessary to run successful congressional campaigns, super PAC donations are liable to have an even greater impact on those races.

The FEC's data shows that America is harkening back to campaign finance rules of the Nixon era, when donors such as W. Clement Stone and a few other wealthy men bankrolled nearly a quarter of the cost of then Vice President Nixon's entire presidential campaign. The money left over from the campaign ended up being the seed money for President Nixon's clandestine activities against his political rivals culminating in the Watergate scandal. The reforms to campaign finance law enacted since that low point in American political history have been completely undone by the Citizens United ruling, and now we are right back where we started.

Read the full article here

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Democracy Project, 2012 Politics