‘Corporations are people, my friends,” said Mitt Romney. And in Citizens United, the conservative justices of the Supreme Court agreed, ruling that corporations, like individuals, are free to spend unlimited sums in so-called “independent expenditures” for candidates. The result — as TV viewers in contested presidential states, or in states with contested Senate or key House seats can attest — is an unprecedented flood of money into political ads. Much of it from independent front groups that are spending ever-greater sums of money from anonymous donors largely on attack ads. What is going on? Clearly, the super rich, the big …
