T he (Raleigh) News & Observer reported Friday that North Carolina Rep. Thom Tillis’ U.S. Senate campaign had dispatched someone wearing a duck costume to various locations around the state to be photographed holding a sign reading “Why is Kay Hagan ducking the October 21st debate?”
This stunt is a prime example of the frivolity that’s characterized a Senate race replete with outsider money — more money than its candidates know how to sensibly spend. Tillis and Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan were projected to spend $103 million all together by the Charlotte Observer, making their Senate race the most expensive ever by more than $25 million.
In a post-Citizens United world, there are no easy answers for scaling back campaign spending. It borders on naivete to call on the candidates to reduce spending — neither side has an incentive to take the moral high ground and refuse donations, and regulation has all but been taken off the table. The attack ads that have become both campaigns’ bread and butter aren’t cheap — more than two-thirds of the $37.5 million spent by outside groups to date has been used to fund them, according to analysis by the Sunlight Foundation.
Voters must make their dissatisfaction with the status quo understood to those with power to compel greater transparency in campaign financing. A revised decision by the Supreme Court is, practically speaking, the country’s only hope to stem the tide. But a sustained, forceful show of public disapproval could ensure that the issue is taken up once more.
