You can't turn on your TV these days without being deluged by the Super PAC ads and the DNC and RNC ones too. Most are awful but the big money is as always with the GOP as it always has been, since the media was mostly print and it supported the Republicans just as the corporate titans do now. What's in it for them? More of the don't-let-anything-trickle-down stuff we had with Bush Junior.
Our pundits act like Ryan has "new ideas"--none but Paul Krugman will say that they are terrible ideas, that all they will do is transfer even more to those that already have the most, not for their work but for their influence. As the late Jimmy Cannon would put it, it's a game only for suckers. People who believe they will win the lottery so they want to get rid of one of the few tools to even things up--the estate tax. We already give Medicare to the millionaires, who of course don't need it but take every red cent they can put their hands on.
Obama brought some of this on himself by trying to work with people who only want to destroy him and ignoring those who wanted to help him achieve his promise and his promises. But now he's the only game in town--sit it out and you get the worst of the worst. You can see it already in Rove's ads and the Supreme Court majority and Mitch McConnell trying to keep the political arena big bucks spenders from having to disclose what they're shelling out their millions for.
Of course the paid media are far more effective now than Hearst or the Chandlers or Col. McCormick were at their worst. We fall victim to news on the net that focuses of fashion victims rather than real ones. And the big money feeds lies that there's not enough opposition to fight when the "news" shows treat every issue as having two legitimate sides.
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