What Comes Next

The polls closed, black markers died, and now the United States drips red. What comes next? For one, there will be debate. A lot of it. On Tuesday, we learned a lot about our country. We saw the opinion of the Health Care package, the embodiment of a Tea Party vote, and ultimately a glimpse into the direction of our country. We knew these indications would come to light on Tuesday, but one issue emerged during the midterm campaigns: who actually runs the modern campaign? 

You saw them during Sunday Night football, between the car insurance ads and the terrifying Snickers' commercials; they loomed in the anonymous small print underlying political attack ads. This election used a new spoon to stir the pot. In the past, we have seen lobbyists fund the campaigns of the politicians that would best protect their profits. Instead, this election saw a wave - not just a breaker off of New Hampshires' coast, but rather a surge from Hawaii's North Shore - of privately funded campaign donations. They payed off. Greg Sargent, a reporter for The Washington Post, said in an Oct. 22 issue that "According to data from the nonpartisan Sunlight Foundation, conservative groups that have spent significant sums have plowed nearly $75 million in undisclosed donations alone into this election.

By contrast, liberal groups have spent under $10 million -- around one eighth that sum. And much of that is coming from groups that weren't set up just to influence elections" (Source: The Washington Post). 

As a result of this, some will argue that it had a profound impact on the Republican's ability to grab 60 new House seats, the largest influx since 1938. This spending trend may indicate numerous things, and not all of them are fundamentally bad. 

First, was this a response to the success of the Obama administration's effort to make the government transparent? This administration may have effectively shifted the ideology of what a governing body should be. A lobbyist's dollar is not worth as much to the politicians or the organizations of today - they can't use funding from a lobbyist without disclosing where the money came from. Could it be true that the lobbyists, who are ultimately the voice of large corporations, have forgone the actual politicians and transferred their funding into the accounts of these anonymous marketing campaigns? 

What does this mean? You'll be sure to see a slew of contending donations in the next election. We will see the true spending power of both the Democratic and Republican supporters. Er, maybe it would be more precise to say that we won't see.

How will this effect the students of Plymouth State? Brace yourselves for more commercials, less tact, and far more yelling within our rotary. 

This election may have ended in red, but we just might end up seeing green.