Redstate

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Incumbent Protection strikes again.

Man, this really makes me want to puke.

The Drudge blurb specifically states that the FEC will be looking at internet activity that is coordinated with candidates' campaigns.  There's nothing in this piece that indicates that the FEC is looking to regulate political speech on the internet as a whole.

I have no love for the FCC, but let's not get overly distraught if it's not called for.

and how loosely/strictly it will be defined.

Could the FEC shut down, say, Blogs for Bush, as it was a site that allowed individual bloggers to link to each other and coordinate information, even though it had no formal ties with the Bush Campaign?

We know already under McCain/Feingold that even individuals are forbidden to run certain advertisements for/against candidates within certain time frames. How hard for some who are very bitter over the audacity of citizen participation over the 'net to push an interpretation that any "published" advocacy must be considered a contribution-in-kind or advertising as defined by M/F?

The 'mainstream media' (especially newspapers) will back this because they do not like the fact that their own power to control information and to endorse their own candidates on the editorial pages has been erroded.

There is apt to be a lot of virtual blood spilled over this in the future.

Time to start putting money in the kitty for the blogger legal defense fund. If this goes through someone will challenge it as a 1st Amendment issue and we can all contribute.

Maybe one of the blogger lawyers will take the case pro-bono.

I can't comment on this to the extent that I would like, but my opinion on campaign finance reform in general is expressed in the title to the post.

that there are hundreds if not thousands of Internet opinioneers who would glow with pride were they the subject of a Federal criminal prosecution, myself among them.

I would gladly (and I mean this literally) spend the rest of my life in prison rather than spend one moment thinking I was not free to express my opinions.

McCain will advance the opinion that the mere expression of political opinions in any conceivable public forum constitutes a contribution to the campaign of a politician.  How could they fail to follow the chain of logic: opinion=support=endorsement=contribution?  This is a matter of the political class wishing to control the public discourse about themselves.  Frankly, it smells like much of what we say we dislike about Putin's Russia.