A core principle of an open society is that, in the words of Thomas Hobbes, liberties ``depend on the silence of the law" -- what is not forbidden is permitted. However, because of the complexities and vagaries of McCain-Feingold and the rest of the government's metastasizing regulations of political activity, prudent participants in politics must assume that everything is forbidden until government gives permission.
In Colorado, Peter Coors of the beer family has won the Republican nomination for a U.S. Senate seat. Until he ran, he frequently appeared in Coors ads. He has stopped the airing of those ads, although ads for the Coors brand continue. But Russ Darrow has not appeared in any auto ads in more than a decade.
The Darrow Group dealerships spend $500,000 a month on advertising, which directly correlates with sales. If the group must go off the air in the peak autumn selling season -- when new models are reaching the showrooms, and before winter grips Wisconsin -- the business could be devastated, and with it the paychecks of the sales force whose compensation depends heavily on commissions.
The Supreme Court's affirmation of McCain-Feingold was a watershed in the nation's constitutional experience. The First Amendment will be forever open to statutory dilution, at least as it pertains to political speech. (The court has placed pornography essentially beyond the reach of regulation.) Henceforth, the guarantee of freedom of political speech is being steadily circumscribed in the name of political hygiene. The right of free expression can be trumped by the supposed imperative of combating ``corruption'' or ``the appearance'' thereof, which is to say, where probably no actual corruption exists.
Common Cause's desire to regulate car ads has no conceivable connection to preventing corruption. But the ``corruption'' rationale merely disguises the reformers' real agenda, which is to extend government supervision of speech whenever they think extension serves their partisan advantage.
Notice that you no longer hear what was, until recently, an incessant rhetorical drumbeat -- the campaign finance reformers' lament about there being ``too much money in politics.'' What happened? Liberals discovered that they could raise lots of money. They rejoiced when Howard Dean so effectively mined the Internet for contributions that he opted out of public financing and its spending limits, causing John Kerry to follow suit. So liberals have adjusted their rhetoric, and their principles, such as they ever were.