Thursday, June 7, 2012

Wisconsin Goes National

A personally troubling aspect of the recall election was the vast amounts of money that flooded into Wisconsin from national donors. These are the type of politics that we can expect from now on as long as the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United is considered good law.
 Even though the candidates talked about Wisconsin issues, no one can dispute the influence of national organizations and political figures that proceeded to turn a Wisconsin governors race into front page news nationally.
As a believer in the old axiom that all politics is local, this nationalizing of electoral campaigns is worrisome because if we argue that one campaign is a microcosm of the national political mood (as I’ve heard argued), aren’t we creating an interconnected chain where what happens in one set of races dominos and creates the national effect?
My ultimate worry is that by nationalizing races, the local concerns of the population who are effected by the day to day running of the state, will be forsaken in the pursuit of national dollars.
 As a politician, are you more concerned about appeasing national interests and getting money to run a campaign, or the local issues that may not appeal to national donors.

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