Private and personal presidential primary

Earlier this week the Supremes removed some of the caps on campaign spending by corporations and unions (though we know in what direction that balance is weighted). I don't understand all the details. Some say it is good because it leads to more transparency (though it also leads to more money in campaigns).

As part of a weekly political discussion on NPR commentators E.J. Dionne and David Brooks noted (though I don't remember which one said it) that this ruling will affect only about 550 people. Along the way they argue the more money v. transparency issue.

Terrence Heath in his personal blog describes what money from some of those 550 people is already doing to our election system. Sheldon Adelson, number eight in the list of wealthiest Americans, has made perhaps $40 billion through casinos. Back in 2012 he backed Newt Gingrich for president, keeping Newt in the action way past the sell date. Then Adelson backed Romney. He tanked too.

So Adelson is looking to reduce the risk of his investment -- and he is definitely looking for a return on dollars spent -- by conducting his own "Sheldon Primary." He invited the various GOP prez. hopefuls to visit him in Las Vegas and over four days of schmoozing he checked them out. He doesn't want to back someone who is so crazy they can't go the distance.

Heath also reports on the latest Koch brother strategy -- get involved in local politics.

The idea is to embed staff members in a community, giving conservative advocacy a permanent local voice through field workers who live in the neighborhood year-round and appreciate the nuances of local issues.

To what ends? That's unclear right now. Just remember they are making an investment and expect a return.

Recently Nate Silver predicted there is a 60% chance the GOP will take the Senate in November (alas, I didn't keep a link). A big part of his reasoning is that Democratic voters tend to turn out less in midterm elections. As several have pointed out if that happens Obama will get absolutely nothing through Congress for the last two years of his presidency, the lamest of ducks.

Of high concern to me is that the Senate then won't confirm any of Obama's picks to any court (including the Supremes if that should come up). Not that many are getting through now even with the elimination of the filibuster on judicial nominees because there are lots of other speed reducing procedures and the GOP is using every last one of them.

All that means we are facing a judicial system full of vacancies that leads to case backlogs and justice delayed and thus denied. This won't end until 2017. And if the next prez. is GOP all those vacancies will be promptly filled with candidates that will do GOP bidding.

Here's one small aspect of what that would look like. Sen. Charles Grassley is now grilling court nominees on the Windsor case. That was last summer's case that struck down part of the Defense of Marriage act and is now being used to justify that whole slew of rulings for marriage equality. It appears Grassley is trying to get nominees to declare such rulings are an incorrect use of the Windsor case.