Super PACs

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is a longtime critic of the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United, which removed corporate limits on political spending and led to the rise of super PACs. But on Tuesday, he criticized the decision at a “storm relief” event in Bowling Green, Ohio, with Republican U.S. Senate candidate Josh Mandel, who has been a huge beneficiary of the spending.

According to Talking Points Memo, Todd Akin's got a super PAC - a real one - behind him and they're ponying up $800,000 to place ads asking folks to vote for Akin because he'll help tip Senate support to a potential Romney administration. Guess they haven't seen the latest polls or else they wouldn't be counting their chickens before they're hatched. It doesn't necessarily  look like there's going to be a President Romney....

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, women earn 81 percent of what men do. Their wealth—assets like homes and savings minus debt—is half men’s, when neither are living with partners or over age 64. As the CBS article points out, women make up 17 percent of Congress and run only 18 of the Fortune 500 companies (that’s 3.6 percent). The higher you look on the ladder of financial well-being and power, the greater the inequality gets.
So as billionaires provide more of the money in politics, it stands to reason that the proportion of dollars with women behind them will shrink. The Center for Responsive Politics just provides evidence to support the logic. A similar breakdown of which donors are white, black, or Latino, would surely find the white/black and white/Latino wealth gaps likewise reflected in political giving.