Letter to the Editor: Get Super PACs Out of Politics

To the Editor: 

One of my super PAC’s latest ads is the talk of the town. It features two colored photographs. The first shows a glass filled with cloudy, yellowish-brown water described as a sample drawn from the faucet of my kitchen sink on Oct. 6, 2011. The second shows a glass with a deposit of sand-like brown particles at the bottom of a clear container. The caption describes it as the same water sample—a month later.

The camera shifts its focus to a child drinking the water. It goes on to ask, “Should we believe Moorestown public officials who assure us that whatever is in our drinking water supply is perfectly harmless?”

Another of my super PAC ads is now saturating the airways. It features athletic fields carpeted with plastic grass overlaid with a $4 million price tag.  A woman carrying an MSOS (Moorestown Save Open Space) sign stands nearby, shaking her head in disbelief. “Is this how Moorestown residents want to spend their Open Space tax dollars?” she asks. Meanwhile, robins are pecking at the carpet, pitifully puzzled and hopelessly searching for earthworms.   

It is my understanding that a forthcoming ad of my super PAC will take viewers on a tour of the intricate labyrinth of the town hall/library issue.  
  
To date, my super PAC ads have made no false statements. Yet many Moorestown residents find them egregious on the grounds that they do not offer a nuanced analysis of the issues at hand and are paid for by a super PAC of anonymous millionaires and billionaires. In answer to these criticisms, I point out I have no control over my super PAC. If I were to try to influence its decisions and modify the contents of its ads, I’d be breaking the law. I could be spending the rest of my life in the “big house.”  

I agree with Governor Romney. Super PACs are distasteful. They shouldn’t play a role in electoral campaigns, beginning perhaps with the Iowa primary? I, for one, am praying for a return to the days when a person wishing to run for president of the United States could do so even if he or she weren’t a millionaire or billionaire backed by super PACS.    

Monique Begg
Moorestown
(Not running for office now or ever)