From Professor Hasen and Bob Bauer comes this story about the Pew Charitable Trusts funding the efforst at campaign finance reform. The fact that a charitable organziation was funding studies to support a political goal of theirs is not particularly surprising--it is after all how much of politics in Washington in done. Nor is it particularly surprising that the elite media did not report on the matter. Most of the elite media was in favor of the McCain-Feingold "reforms" in the first place and probably view Pew as a good institution.
I have no beef with Pew or any other organization pursuing politcal and policy goals it deems "good," such efforts are at the base of our democracy. What is interesting to me is the failure of pople like Ryan Sager to understand that such mechanisms are how politics is done in Washington and in America. Only those with an interest or a stake in a political fight are likely to spend much time or money on any one issue. Few issues reach a broad national concern or achieve any consensus among most Americans. So, in order to generate movement on an isssue that most Americans don't care about, organziations such as Pew and those groups supported by Pew grants try to generate a "grassroots" movement through various means. Such tactics are not new and form the basis of a large and growing business in Washington.
Anyone remember Clinton care--a broad national issue spearheaded by a group led by the Health Insurance Association of America and the National Federation of Independent Business, but not by name. (by the way, for a good dissection of that effort, read "The System" by David Broder and Haynes Johnson.) Politics in Washington, including so-called reform politics, are conducted by interest groups who work very hard to generate the appearance, rather than the reality, of grassroots interest.
Sager raises a number of questions about the press treatment of the campaign finance reform effort and the funding underlying such an effort. But rather than trying to educate the public on the effort of interest groups on an issue of at best marginal concern to most American, Sager would have been much better off looking at the mainstream press treatment of larger issues, like education or homeland security. These issues touch the lives of all Americans, but if you look at the MSM, the slant is decidedly one way--and dissenters be damned!!.
On another level, does Sager really think that anyone in Congress is so stupid as to believe that an issue consistenly ranked as one most American's didn't care about was teh subject of a groundswell of grassroots support. You don't have to be a rocket scientist or theoretical mathematician to be in Congress, but no-one in Congress who has been in the game for more than five minutes knows that most "grassroots movements" are anything but. What the motivations of individual congressmen were on the reason they voted are theirs alone, but I seriously doubt they thought that the issue resonated with majority of their constituents.
UPDATE--3/22/2005This editorial by the New York Post that further perpetuates the myth that somehow Congress is nothing but a bunch of addle-minded dolts who are fooled by massive "grassroots" campaigns on an issue most of their constitutents tell them is not all that important. While Congressmen are no rocket scientists, they do understand public opinion.
This is not to say, as the editorial points out, that Pew doesn't have some explanations to make since the organization is forbidden, by law, to engage in lobbying or else it would lose its tax-exempt status.
New York Post Online Edition: postopinion
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