February 2010

The election of the forty-first Republican and the first nudie model to the U.S. Senate has the pundits chattering. Scott Brown's victory in the Massachusetts senate race is being read as a dark omen of what the Democrats will face in the mid-term election. Does Scott Brown's election really signal the emergence of the Tea Party as a powerful new reactionary force on the American political scene? Does his election foretell the end of the Democratic majority? Is it a turning point in American politics?

We can't know for sure, but history is never so predetermined. It's more than likely that the pundits are wrong. After all these are the same pundits who predicted last year that the Democratic majority would rule for a generation - before they predicted that Obama was unelectable and Hillary Clinton had the Democratic nomination sewn up.

Here's another interpretation: Scott Brown defeated an indifferent Democratic politician who didn't even bother to campaign. The handful of voters who showed up at a special election in the middle of winter were motivated by frustration and anger - not necessarily directed at President Obama - but at the local Democratic machine politicians who took them for granted and ran Massachusetts like a one-party state.

The media's penchant for reading too much into Scott Brown's election is a common phenomenon. Looking backward we often attribute significance to events that might be merely random localized occurrences. On the other hand, sometimes random occurrences can alter the course of history. We learn in school that history is determined by great leaders, big ideas, or broad social movements. But sometimes, history is determined by accident.

The success of the American Revolution, for example, has been attributed to a wide-range of causes: the brilliant leadership of our founding fathers, the ideology of civic republicanism, and the social mobility of American colonists. But a more likely explanation is the particular timing of France's intervention on the side of the colonies.

Why did Louis XVI agree to aid the American revolutionaries when they appeared to be losing? The conventional explanation is that Benjamin Franklin charmed the French monarchy into providing all of the arms, ammunition and supplies for the Continental Army. But, in reality, Franklin had nothing to do with it.

In January 1776, long before Franklin arrived in France, he sent an unknown Connecticut shopkeeper, Silas Deane, on a secret mission to persuade Louis XVI to arm the Americans. Deane had never left Connecticut in his life, could not speak a word of French, and knew nothing about diplomacy. But Franklin thought that Deane was such an improbable emissary that the British spies would never suspect him.

Deane succeeded with the help of two Frenchmen: the comic playwright Caron de Beaumarchais and the French ambassador to London Chevalier d'Eon. This improbable trio is the subject of my new book, Unlikely Allies: How a Merchant, a Playwright, and a Spy Saved the American Revolution.

"Eight in 10 poll respondents say they oppose the high court's Jan. 21 decision to allow unfettered corporate political spending, with 65 percent ‘strongly' opposed. Nearly as many backed congressional action to curb the ruling, with 72 percent in favor of reinstating limits," The Washington Post reported.

The newspaper reported that the polling also revealed "little difference of opinion on the issue among" Democrats and Republicans and that it suggested "a strong reservoir of bipartisan support on the issue for President Obama and congressional Democrats, who are in the midst of crafting legislation aimed at limiting the impact of the high court's decision."

Gary Langer, director of polling at ABC News, noted that the survey also revealed that even some supporters of the Tea Party movement, which rails against the federal government, oppose the outcome in Citizens United.

"Even among people who agree at least somewhat with the Tea Party movement," Langer wrote, "73 percent oppose the high court's rejection of this particular law. Among the subset who agree strong with the Tea Party's position on the issues - 14 percent of all adults - fewer but still most, 56 percent, oppose the high court in this case."

Langer's post includes the entire polling data here.

The 5-4 ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission found that corporations have free speech rights to spend on campaigns, overturning decades of precedent upholding regulations on corporate campaign financing.

The Post noted that Sen. Charles Schumer and Rep. Chris Van Hollen are working on legislation addressing the ruling in Citizens United. In response to the new poll, Sen. Schumer, said, "If there's one thing that Americans from the left, right and center can all agree on, it's that they don't want more special interest in our politics."

ACS will host a panel discussion on Feb. 24 at the National Press Club on the implications of the ruling, including how it may impact the midterm elections. The panel discussion will include Jan W. Baran, a nationally recognized campaign and elections law attorney, who filed a friend-of-the-court brief in Citizens United arguing in support of corporations' free speech rights to spend on campaigns, and Joseph Sandler, a former general counsel for the Democratic National Committee, and also a campaign finance law expert. Following the ruling, Sandler told USA Today that it will likely make it a tougher challenge for incumbents seeking reelection.

See here for more information about the ACS event, "Citizens United v. FEC: The Decision, Its Implications, and the Road Ahead." Check here for additional expert commentary on the case from ACSblog.