Johnson: Filthy Lucre Won The Day

The Republican romp across the electoral map yesterday may or may not prove to be a defining moment in the “re-branding” of the national GOP in advance of the 2016 presidential election to which all eyes now turn, but it most assuredly marks the first national election where the candidates – Republican and Democratic – lost control of their campaigns to the growing forces of dark money, secretly spent. The 2014 mid-terms will be dissected by pundits to assess the real message of the dispiriting campaigns. Surely the president’s vast unpopularity is a big part of the story, so too the fact that Republican Senate candidates generally won in states where Mitt Romney ran well two years ago. … Still the real and lasting import of 2014 is hidden right in plan sight on our televisions – the attack ads, the depressing repetition of half-truth and distortion that is the uncontested central feature of our politics/ Marc Johnson , The Johnson Report. More here.