The American Debate: Groups are changing the political landscape

Pop quiz! Identify these political heavy hitters:

Edward Conrad, Robert Mercer, John Paulson, Bob Perry, Julian Robertson, Paul Singer, Sheldon Adelson.

Give up?

They're very rich people who have inaugurated a brand new era of politics in America, the Daddy Warbucks era. Their lavish donations have been directly responsible for the unprecedented glut of toxic TV attack ads that have debased the Republican presidential race, most recently in Florida.

The first six donors (all of whom are investment bankers and hedge fund executives, with the exception of home builder Perry) have ponied up at least $1 million apiece for a pro-Romney group known as Restore Our Future. This loftily titled entity aired 4,969 negative spots during the Florida primary campaign. The ads all targeted Newt Gingrich, depicting him as a lying, unstable, erratic hypocrite who profited off the misery of Florida's foreclosed homeowners.

Adelson, the seventh listed donor, has single-handedly kept Gingrich alive in the race. He and his family have shelled out $10 million to a group known as Winning Our Future, which aired 1,893 spots in Florida. Most were negative. All the negative spots targeted Mitt Romney, depicting him as a lying, flip-flopping hypocrite who amassed his fortune with the help of "blood money."

We can thank the U.S. Supreme Court for all this. The five Republican appointees ushered in the Daddy Warbucks era two years ago, when they basically decreed in the Citizens United case that the rich and the special interests should be free to spend unlimited money to influence political discourse.

A century of laws and decades of high-court rulings had previously banned the big dogs from running wild with their money, lest their huge megaphones drown out everyone else. But Citizens United swept away those laws and precedents. Under the new ethos, the system is rigged for the rich. Money equals speech. The more money you have, the more speech you can buy. Basically, the John G. Roberts Jr. court has become the judicial arm of the one percenters.

Now, at the dawn of the 2012 race, we're already seeing the consequences. And, ironically, it's the Republicans who have suffered the most. The TV ads bankrolled by those heavy hitters have been so ubiquitous and so scabrous that Romney's unfavorable rating has soared in the national polls (Gingrich's unfavorable rating was already high), costing him support among swing-voting independents.