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BY JOE CHIODO
(AOC) Presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt
Romney’s campaign just got a little...okay a lot...of help from casino magnate Sheldon
Adelson. The billionaire donated $10 million to the Republican Super PAC, but that might
not be the end of it. CNN has the story.
ANCHOR: “Adelson could give as much as $100 million to the Romney super PAC, and just
how this money, might this infusion of cash impact the campaign? ...
ANALYST: ...You know this is all going to go to ads.”
The donation may come as a shock to some... especially those who supported former House
Speaker Newt Gingrich’s run for the nomination. Adelson, ranked as the 14th richest man in
the world, gave more than twenty million of his estimated $25 billion dollar net worth
to Gingrich before he left the race. The Daily Show found some humor in his pricey decision.
“Sheldon Adelson was the guy who was willing to spend an unlimited amount of money to crush
Mitt Romney by bankrolling ads in the Republican primary like this...
“For tens of thousands of Americans, the suffering began when Mitt Romney came to town...”
So does he just want Obama out and a Republican in? Forbes quotes a source close to Adelson
who says...
“Further donations will be limitless and Adelson believes that no price is too high
to protect the U.S. from what he sees as Obama’s ‘Socialization’ of America.”
But according to Robert Reich, former Labor Secretary during the Clinton Administration,
Democrats surely aren’t sharing that mindset. C-Span reports.
“What is a normal citizen going to think? What are we going to talk about with our children
about how our democracy was bought in the election of 2012? ...Get money--big money
out of politics.”
And if big money is here to stay, it could drastically change the political playing field
in future elections. MSNBC’s Richard Wolff says people may start to find the election
process uncomfortable.
“Who is this campaign about? Is it about candidates driving their own organizations
of a bunch of wealthy sort of oligarch figures who think they can control democracy using
the power of their checkbook?
But when it comes to big money giving the GOP an unfair advantage, conservative blog
site Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey disagrees.
“Let’s not forget that Barack Obama was the first major-party presidential candidate
since Watergate to refuse to participate in the public financing of his campaign … To
a very large extent, Obama made his own bed, and Adelson will be happy to see him lying
in it.”
Adelson’s wealth comes from The Las Vegas Sands Corporation. According to financial
filings it brought in $9.4 billion in 2011.