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JACOB SULLUM: Ad Rage: Democrats blame the First Amendment for their impending losses. As Democ?

By Glenn Reynolds

JACOB SULLUM: Ad Rage: Democrats blame the First Amendment for their impending losses.

As Democrats head for what promises to be a midterm election fiasco of historic proportions, a pre-emptive excuse has begun to circulate: It’s all because of Citizens United. Team Donkey fans claim the January 21 decision, in which the Supreme Court overturned restrictions on the political speech of corporations, triggered a flood of negative advertising by what President Obama calls “shadowy groups with harmless-sounding names.”

If independent groups favoring Team Elephant have a spending advantage so far, it’s not because of recent changes in election law. Most of the advertising that irks Democrats was legal before Citizens United, and the plausible prospect of taking over one or both houses of Congress has energized Republicans, while Democrats are dispirited by the unpopularity of their party’s policies.

Yeah, you ram through policies that the public doesn’t like, you’re going to do badly. It’s that whole actions/consequences thing.

Full post as published by Instapundit.com on September 23, 2010 (boomark / email).