The Green[e]house Effect: a Weblog

Mobilizing the Second Superpower

People on the left have started worrying that Republicans could bury Democrats under an avalanche of money in 2004. It's a matter worth concern. With the GOP having increasing success in locking in the backing of K Street lobbyists, and with Democrats having dug a hole for themselves with the enactment of the new campaign finance law, Bush could spend the eventual Democratic nominee into oblivion before the general election campaign even begins.

Bush plans to build his war chest with unorthodox tactics; people at his campaign say he intends to reject federal matching funds so he can get out from under spending caps during the primaries. Progressives — if they want to counter that advantage — might need to consider an unconventional response.

Much of the GOP war chest comes by way of corporate largesse, in the form of contributions made in return for favorable treatment — for an example, look at Halliburton — or to buy a seat at the table. In many instances — think of the oil industry, or the lenient treatment financial institutions have received from federal regulators in comparison with the efforts of New York attorney general Eliot Spitzer — that power derives from multinational corporations that earn healthy portions of their revenues from overseas.

That power needs a counterweight. Progressives can look overseas to find it.

A February article in the New York Times described world opinion as "the second superpower." Through the winter, world opinion proved itself to be among the greatest impediments to the Bush administration's march to war, and played a significant role in preventing more foreign governments from supporting American efforts. Fareed Zakaria summed up the attitude behind the widespread protests:

[The Bush] administration is wrong if it believes that a successful war will make the world snap out of a deep and widening mistrust and resentment of American foreign policy. . . . What worries people around the world above all else is living in a world shaped and dominated by one country—the United States. And they have come to be deeply suspicious and fearful of us.

That suspicion and fear proved to be enough to drive millions of people into the streets. Those people wanted a chance to have their say on American policy.

What if someone gave that chance to them?

The MoveOn Primary, and that group's surprise success in raising a quick $700,000 for Sen. Paul Wellstone last fall, demonstrate how to use the Internet for 'smart mob' politics — for drawing people of disparate backgrounds and from far-flung places together in a common cause. The size of this year's antiwar protests, in the meantime, illustrates the worth of the internet as a tool for channeling global opinion. By combining aspects of both models — MoveOn's fundraising prowess, and the war protestors' global reach — the left could create a bulwark against the Republican financial onslaught.

Call it the 'Beat Bush' bucket brigade. With American progressives looking for a financial assist while they take on the Bush campaign machine, and people overseas who disapprove of Bush looking for a way to register their opposition, it doesn't take a stroke of genius to see the sense in harnessing overseas energy to the effort to elect a new president. Enterprenurial political operatives here could put two and two together by setting up an internet-based organization — chartered under section 527 of the Internal Revenue Code — designed to give people abroad a means of funding an independent expenditure campaign against Bush-Cheney 2004.

Relying on overseas dollars, to be sure, opens Democrats to charges of hocking our interests to foreigners. To deflect that allegation, organizers — aside from maintaining strict operational independence from the party —could promise to accept contributions only from individuals and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), not from corporations or foreign governments, and to limit contributions to no more than $2,000. Having thousands of individual donors and nonprofits would make it tough for any one of them to exert undue influence. As for NGOs, they have special reason to get active; conservatives have trained their sights on such groups in the wake of the war in Iraq. (One Bush administration official says that NGOs that want to aid Iraqis should act "an arm of the U.S. government.")

For the sake of appearances, control of the campaign would need to rest firmly in the hands of Americans, and as a practical matter the campaign would need to tune its message to the best issues to use against Bush, rather than playing up sentiments that resonate better overseas than with American voters. Still, given the breadth of worldwide opposition to the administration and the ease with which people have already used the Internet to tap into it, it's hard not to envision more than a few people overseas jumping at the chance to put their money where their mouth is. Someone ought to give them a way.

Posted by Greg Greene at June 28, 2003 09:47 PM