head into the republican convention which kicks off officially tomorrow but things will not get under way because of hurricane is it. looking at a few headlines in the paper to give you a sense of the headlines. there is a piece about super pac's, fundraising, and who gets access to events around the convention. "a harder message for the last stretch the dough he is heading into the nominating convention with his advisers convinced he needs a more competitive stance in order to appeal to white working-class voters and persuade them he is the best answer for their economic frustrations. kingsport,from tenn., jerry, republican. good morning. caller: good morning.

i am a republican -- a disgruntled republican. i will be voting for ron paul. i do not terrify after write it in. somehow or another, i will be voting for him. when the republican party took on the neocons, the communist democrats out of russia, that corrupted them just like the democratic party is now long gone. i will be voting for ron paul. host: one last comment off of twitter. we will be taking more of your tweets and phone calls all morning today on "washington journal." for the rest of the show, we're looking at the money in politics. next, looking at the spending going to a political convention. how much of it is public money and how much as private? dave levinthal joins us from

politico. and later, the head of citizens united talking about the supreme court case and its effect on campaign 2012. take a look at a live image from "the tampa bay times forum" where the convention will get under way. our local content vehicle staff visited tampa for the literary and history of the city. this is the story of the tampa immigrant community explained. [video clip] >> tampa, fla., has a very unique history, especially the immigrant heritage in the late 1800's right here in part of tampa. young and old people alike came to work in the cigar factories. they came from spain, cuba, italy. they developed a very vibrant

latin court. what is unique about the various immigrant societies is that they all established their own clubs, mutual societies. we are here and at el centro historiono, one of the most vibrant clubs for the immigrant community, primarily for the people here who came from spain and cuba to live and work in a cigar factory. they had a lot of young man who, over time, because of the culture, the games, the casinos, the clubs, the dances, the health care, the hospital established, they became a very integrated coming in the community. today, if you live in tampa, oftentimes you can point back to your grandfather or grandmother that worked in the cigar factory and was a member of the

italian club, the cuban club. looking at a live shot of the side of the republican convention that will get started this week. we are talking now about how these conventions are paid for. joining us is dave levinthal, a reporter from politico. the price tag of the convention. how much does it cost to throw the republican or democratic convention? what are we looking at? guest: $50 million did it will be give-and-take. what's important to note is that it seems like the budget, at the end of the day, will be a little bit less than they were in 2008. we can talk about conventions and then we can talk about conventions. the $50 million is the actual

staging of the event itself, but there are all sorts of ancillary events, secondary events that are going on in the orbit of the convention that are very much part of the festivities but not necessarily something that is part and parcel of the conventions themselves. host: first, taxpayer dollars. how much to the american people pay to make the convention happens? guest: a little more than $18 million per convention. when they file the irs tax form, they have the option to check a box and effectively make a contribution to refund that goes to the public funding of the convention. the idea being these are public proceedings in a way so there should be an option the taxpayers have to go ahead and make a contribution to their staging. this has been going on for many years. it is somewhat controversial. senator tom coburn from

oklahoma and senator mark udall from colorado, a few months ago they sponsored a bill that would have done away from taxpayer funding for the convention's going forward. ultimately that did not pass. it remains to be seen if it will be brought up again in the future, but it is taxpayer funding. we have other money going to the convention that is largely for security. these are huge events with many will double moving parts with a major security concerns for obvious reasons with a number of important politicians in notable people will be there in the same place at the same time. you can obviously imagine what is going on in terms of the security there. there are, quite literally, tens of millions of federal dollars going to the security aspects of the convention.

that is paid for in a slightly separate way than the actual funding of the conventions themselves. it is something that has congressional approval was opposed to a check on a tax return. senatort's talk about coburn's efforts to get taxpayer funding out of the events. what does he want to change? guest: there are a lot of members who feel that public money just simply should not go to events like this. in some people's opinion, they have largely become public relations events. they do not have the same type of function that they certainly did 50 or 60 years ago where you could go to a convention and potentially not know who the nominee was going to be. there would be roll-call votes and things that were definitely separate from the text of activity that you would see in conventions today. be that as it may, we have a

convention is that we do right now. there are arguments to be made that this is a very critical event for both parties to get everyone together, unified behind a candidate, create or reaffirm a platform. it is a once every four years event, the olympics of politics. they get together and really have an opportunity as a party, particularly this go around after a very bitter, protracted, lengthy, yearlong republican primary fight were you had a seminar a legitimate candidates at one time or another who were vying for the party banner. host: this is a story coming to us from a local news station that did an analysis of whether the campaign funded, who contributed public dollars to getting these conventions off the ground. it says --

dave levinthal, what is the counter argument to that? some say that this should be a way for taxpayers to be able to choose where their money goes. public funding is that a part of it, it could open the floodgate to private money which brings up other questions. guest: exactly. the strength of that argument is that this is voluntary. this is not something that is mandatory. you have the option to direct a small portion of money to the staging of this event.

if you do not want to do it, do not check the box. of course, you get into the issue of, if you do not check the box or have this bond, what do you have? likely, it would be a convention that would be paid for in a different way for public dollars that may not be so voluntary. also, it could be dominated by private institutions, special interest groups, unions, corporations. for a lot of people, that is something that they find it to be less than ideal when it comes down to it. it would hearken back to the days before there were some significant reforms in the 1970's that said the situation we have today as we know it, for all intents and purposes, watergate having a very major effect on a lot of things in the campaign finance world, but this was certainly one of them, funding conventions.

host: we are talking with dave levinthal of politico. if you would like to join the conversation, the numbers are on your screen. let's go to kansas, darlene joining us on the republican line. caller: good morning. years ago, we used to watch the $6 million man. do you remember that? the million dollar man. today, we have a $16 trillion man. obama has put us into debt $16 trillion. i want everyone to write that number down and see if they can even put that many 0's behind it. host: what do think about how the conventions are paid for? do you think your campaign --

your taxpayer dollars should go to them? caller: they spend an awful lot of money on conventions and running for office. it could start a little bit later, i think. it would not hurt anything. i just want everyone to vote for romney this year. host: let's talk about the private money that goes into these elections. we talk about the private bond, but that is only a piece of the puzzle. how else is it paid for? guest: both republicans and democrats have set up a non- profit organizations that are nonpartisan by their charter and effectively, what they do is that they serve a function to support the operations of the convention. it is a little bit different on the democratic side as to the republican side as to how these non-profit organizations actually operate. for example, on the republican

side, if you are a corp., a union, or any other special interest group, you can go ahead and make a drag donation to that nonprofit organization which will do all sorts of other things, support operations, telecommunications, defense, pomp, and add entry around the convention, pretty much everything that is not part and parcel of the convention itself. on the democratic side, it's a little different because democrats have said we're not going to take direct contributions from corporations or unions. we're going to cap it at $100,000 for individual contributions. they were self-limiting a bit to try to be as open and transparent and as a populist as they possibly could. the democrats have called this the people's convention. you can believe that or not, but

the fact of the matter is they're limiting the types of direct contributions to the nonprofit group, significantly more than republicans are. there is a loophole. if you are a corporation, you can give an in kind contribution, a service, something of value that is a direct contribution and still have a participatory role in the nonprofit operation. the democrats have taken a lot of heat for that saying that you're doing it only 50% of the way here. it is not a true rejection of that kind of money that both sides want to get. host: earlier this month and a democratic fundraising hindered by rules and the unions. .

>> fundraising for their operation, for the convention operation on a whole, so as a result, it's going to be curious to see in the aftermath if they've had to actually scale things down f. they've had significant financial difficulties that have caused them to do things differently than they've perhaps would have if they were flush with cash and could take all the money they wanted to do to do whatever they wanted with. >> here's on observation from daryl on twitter, he says the box people can check off on the irs form should say the

money is given for national conventions, should spell it out, most americans probably wouldn't want to give money for their olympics. guest: it's something again that goes back to the voluntary nature of that. if you're checking that box, unless you go on the internet or read the fine print, you might not necessarily know what you're checking or what the money is going for. of course this is something that is also put into a fund for presidential candidates for a public presidential financing system, but that's something that effectively is obsolete right now, because none of the major candidates are actually taking the money, either barack obama or mitt romney, from this pot. you have gary johnson, libertarian candidate, and a couple of others but really, nobody who is going to have an overrunning chance of winning the white house this year. it's game obsolete in 2008 when barack obama, who initially said he was going to take public presidential funding decided he was ultimately not going to take funding of this sort so that

he could raise unlimited sums of money in the way that you can when you are a presidential candidate or any other candidate opting out of that system. host: about the presidential election campaign fund, it was created around the federal election campaign act of 1971, in the 1974 amendments to that act. it's administered by the sec. the fayouts are indexed to inflation and back in 1994, the checkoff on that one went from $1 to $3 that taxpayers could choose to allocate. the current fund balance as for the few months ago was $249 million. is there a cap on how much money can be sitting in that account? guest: i don't know, to tell you the truth, as to whether there's a cap for the fund. there sort of is a sub limiting cap in the money donated to it and of course the money taken out of it, but you can expect if for presidential candidates or major presidential candidates are drawing from that fund, simple math, who's going to suggest it will start to go

up, but it's interesting to note that, and important to note, too, there are many calls from many camps, and you have some on the conservative side, some on the lebral side, many independents, too, that say why even have the system if nobody is really tapping into it. it's kind of a system that is there but not being used. we need to change this. we need to use this money in a different way to direct it for a purpose that is actually going to in one way or another benefit the public good, benefit the elections of this country. host: dave levinthal, reporting on political influence from politico. he joined politico over a year ago and cowrites the daily column, politico influence, intelligence and analises on lobbying, he's also worked at open secrets.org, communications director at the center for responsive politics. he also has experience as a reporter in dallas, for the dallas morning news and in new as a state house reporter for the eagle tribune of

northern massachusetts. let's go to samantha, democratic caller from patterson, new jersey. turn down your tv. you're on the air. caller: okay. host: turn down your tv. we're listening to you. good morning. caller: i'm sorry. okay. we're down. good morning. i am a democrat and i really don't care where the money goes to, as long as i'm involved in the american political system. well, i know who i'm going to vote for, but i know that the country needs, you know, a certain amount of money in order for the process to go through. is there a republican consensus -- is there something that -- some things are going wrong, nobody is

working together, nobody is talking about any type of situation except for their own lives. it's really hard. i think it's really hard for other countries to have a solid vote. everybody is like going in all directions because the republicans really don't have a come together situation. so who else am i supposed to vote for? i mean, i could become a republican at any time, i believe, but i am definitely going to stay a democratic and i'm going to vote for whoever i want to vote for, but you guys, you know, you republicans, you really need to come together. host: we were talking on an earlier segment, dave levinthal, about party unifying, not -- the gop,

unifying before the convention. you mentioned this is no longer a dramatic moment of back room deals and brokering and last minute decisions, big dramatic reveals about nominees and candidates. what do the parties see these days? guest: we obviously know that ron paul, many to peoples' khag rin will not become the nominee or rick santorum is not going to make some crazy comeback and become the nom know or newt gingrich. what this boils down to is this is an opportunity for the democrats and republicans try to coalesce around the nominee, candidate, show party unity, try to get a centralize dollars, concertive, cohesive message and put it together for prime time in front of the american people or at least the people who tune in to watch the conventions. so you will some very high profile speakers, speakers on the republican side this week that maybe don't share all the same, similar views as

maybe mitt romney would and there's going to be a tribute, for example, to ron paul during the convention, so obviously ron paul and mitt romney don't see eye to eye on every issue but there be enough room and time for both of them and both of their sides to have their airing. obviously this is going to -- something that is going to be focused around mitt romney, but in keeping with the old school gop big tent philosophy, they're trying to get as many voices as possible, at least represented within the party at some point in the convention, even ifets just more or less a hat tip to them as opposed to a featured role. host: ken from arkansas, independent caller, good morning. caller: good morning. i'm not really sure -- i used to be a profound democrat, but nowadays, it's just turned into a rat race to me. it looks like -- we look like a bunch of clowns in a

carnival setting. i mean, this is ridiculous. we owe china how much money? i mean, i -- i don't know much money we owe to chine could and we've got 24 -- china and we've got all this $249 million sitting there. there's no telling what is sitting there. there's no telling what the government has. truth be told, i don't think the true issues are being brought out. we've got things like planet x. we've got all of these things, important things, that should be the center, but meanwhile, we've got people starving in our own back yards. i mean, i live in little rock, and you cannot go down a street without seeing a homeless person with a sign up. so i get so frustrated when i see all this money sitting

there. and i check the damn box, to be honest. host: why did you? guest: because i felt at that point it was my patriot duty. i want money -- i get so irritated when i see all these billions of dollars going to watch two men who i don't think could run a day care right now, ma'am. i mean, the -- i want to hear about the issues that count. host: let's go to dave levinthal to get his response. guest: the caller's sentiments echo what a lot of people feel about the conventions and that again goes back to the idea that there's too much money being spent on the conventions, from a public standpoint, but also, too much money that's coming in from private entities, that this is too much of a forum for lobbying

interests and big corporations and big unions to go to lap in, go to charlotte, and even though they aren't directly funding the convention operations, they definitely play a large role, they have a huge stage, they get great access to the candidates, to the various politicians of both parties, and you think sometimes that washington, d.c. is kind of the center of all that money and politics action. well, in a way the conventions are sort of an even more cohesive operation for just that, where for four, five, six days, you have all these different entities that all want something from another, and have the opportunity to rub shoulders. we haven't even talked about the greats hundreds of parties and receptions that go around outside of the convention grounds that often times are incredibly exclusive and are opportunities for the biggest power players, both private and public, to get together and hobnob and have a great

time doing it. host: "new york times" this morning, for big givers, cash and clout arrive together. exclusive events await the elite at the convention. it says when thousands of delegates, elected officials and party leaders begin arriving in tampa for the rnc hundreds of lobbyists, corporate executives, trade associations and donors will be waiting for them, exploiting legal loopholes and the fun house atmosphere that makes each party's quadrant hill conventions a gathering of money and conventions unrivaled in politics. guest: i've talked to a lot of lobbyists who are going to the conventions and they say of course we're going to the conventions, why wouldn't we go to the conventions, we represent clients who do work with the governments, with the very politicians who are going to be there. there's no reason we wouldn't go there. so for them, it's a sheer very savvy business decision, for them to go and be a part and be in the center of all of the action for both sides.

and we talk a lot about superpacs, this election season, these organizations that are set up independent, at least, on paper, that can raise and spend unlimited sums of money to advocate for or against a candidate, that run often praeupls by former operatives of the candidates running in the presidential or congressional elections and even though they're supposed to be independent when they make the decisions from the campaigns themselves, they're going to have a huge presence at the operations of the conventions. on the democratic side there's an event called the superorama and it's, at the name suggests, is an very ant sponsored by a superpac supportive of barack obama and pretty much everyone, no matter who you are, what you are, if you care about politics, if you care about this election season, if you care about the presidential race, you're probably going to be at the convention in some form or another. host: we'll be talking more about funding of politics and campaign 2012, we'll have the president of citizens united

joining us after dave levinthal. also later on this morning, looking at the money that comes from pacs, superpacs and campaigns in campaign 2012. let's hear from tom, a republican in north greenfield, new jersey, good morning. caller: how are you? host: good, thanks, how are you. caller: couple of quick points, bottom line, our country is sick, i blame republicans, democrats, independents. as far as i'm concerned any politician that's been up there more than one term has put my kids and grandkids' future at stake. that being said, with the amount of money that's being put into both sides, republicans and democrats, from corporations, independent workers and so on, so forth, unions, all the rest, wherever the money is coming, from do you as a reporter honestly think that there is anything that those folks are doing that is really for the betterment of our country or is it for the betterment of their bottom line, i.e., money? the only way that this can be

changed is we need to completely resrafp the tai the waxes -- the way the taxes are collected here, we have thousands of pages of loopholes that have been carved out by the people putting the money into the politics and if you think for one second -- i'd love to hear whether you honestly believe those people are doing that out of the good of their heart or are they doing it out of one thing, and that's to make money? host: any comment on that dave levinthal? guest: sure. there's a huge camp that believes that special interest money should be taken out of the process as much as possible and as the caller suggested, they believe that, hey, they're doing it for no other reason than for themselves. you also have another school of thought, and this is one that's very popular among people who feel that deregulation is the way to go in this country, when it comes to campaigns and campaign finance, where effectively the argument boiled down is it's okay to have a whole variety of different groups spending money in the political process at the end of the

day, you're going to have more voices, more dialogue, you're going to have a more robust discussion leading up to any election than you would if you tried to sort of artificially limit that and also limit the money. very passionate arguments on both sides. obviously, our job as reporters are to try to make heads and tails of it and present those both sides. but what you're seeing this election cycle is voices on both sides that are louder and stronger than we certainly have ever really seen them in the past couple of election cycles, even when those voices were still at that point very, very loud and very, very strong. people see the money that's going into the process, people see the -- all sorts of special interests groups, corporations, unions, and very, very wealthy individuals who can write million dollars or $10 million checks to superpacs or nonprofit organizations that get involved in the system, and a lot of people just sitting at home are kind of scratching their heads asking, well, all right, if i donate five or 10

bucks, what does it ever matter, where do i find into this process. it's a question that often times, they've not gotten a satisfactory answer to, and therefore, get very frustrated with the overall system feeling that it's not really about them, it's about somebody else. host: we're talking about the funding of presidential campaigns. let's take a look at our live shot of the tampa bay times forum. this is the first time a presidential nominating convention is being held in florida, since 1972, back in that year. both a republican and democratic national committee held their nominating conventions in miami beach. we're seeing a schedule changed up a bit this week because of the threat of hurricane isaac. rnc chairman reince priebus announced yesterday evening that monday's events are essentially canceled. they will officially convene starting tomorrow, but then events are postponed until tuesday and we'll find out more this morning about when exactly events will get underway on tuesday and whether or not the schedule

of speakers will be changing. a couple of things we do know for sure, mitt romney will be speaking the last night. he's going to be introduced by senator of florida, marco rubio, and we'll see a variety of other speakers, including governor chris christie, ann romney, as well as members of congress throughout the few days of the convention. paul, an independent caller in inglewood, tennessee, good morning. caller: good morning. host: hi, go ahead. col that was a great call by the republican that just called in. the true 1 percenters in this country are in north carolina and florida, it's the democrats and the republicans. obama says he wants to redistribute wealth, well, he doesn't want to redistribute it when it comes to campaign donations for him. we should tax the contributions of the done. s, not the donors and tax and

redistribute it to the other parties, the tea party, the constitutional party, these that are nonextremists, unlike the extremists in particular the democratic party. i am appreciative and maybe the media needs to be taxed more, too, but i am appreciative of this show and in allowing all of us that have opinions to give our opinion. we have people in knoxville, which is nearby, howell neil and chris mary ann, that if you say something negative about obama, that he's a dumb president, they don't want you to say it. so i am appreciative of the -- of cnn. of cnn. of this station. thank you very much. host: dave levinthal, me evenings dollars the schedule is changing up for the rnc and we're losing monday as a day. how much impact to you -- do you think that will have from

things? guest: certainly from a procedural standpoint it will have some effect on the way the convention is actually going to go. you're going to look at the schedule being condensed, perhaps they're going to be able to get all speakers in but when you have fewer days or hours to fit in the same amount of people you want logically you're going to have to really rejigger things a bit in order to get those voices in. perhaps shorter speeches, some that might not appear in prime time or in the slot that they were supposed to go in. so again, from that standpoint, there is going to be some effect. from a financial effect t. remains to be seen as to whether the overall operation is going to actually grow in cost or be reduced in cost. because of all the changes, the very last minute changes, they may be scrambling around and have to ultimately spend more money at the end of the day in order to get everything kicked off than they would have had there been no tropical storm swelling around in the carribean. but then again, because of the condensed schedule they may be able to kind of cut

corners in a way that is going to reduce the funding. it's important to note that ultimately, we're not going to see the full picture of the funding, probably until october, and that's because there's a mandatory federal requirement that requires you to go ahead and unearth and reveal who is donating to those nonprofit organizations that we talked about. but there's only kind of bits and pieces that we've seen so far in terms of the donors, sponsors, on the democratic side, the in kind contributions going to the two convention nonprofits. but we do not have a full picture at this point. the democrats would say initially they were going to be more open at least initially with who was exactly funding those operations, but they've kind of retrenched and retracted that a bit, and the republicans say hey, we're doing what the law requires us to do so there's really no problem with this. host: one of the "washington post" democrats, long disclosed owners to charlotte

convention until after -- won't disclose until after the event, they said they would regularly disclose contributors. why have democrats changed on this, do we know? guest: we can certainly speculate and we've talked to people in the know but wouldn't talk on the record but have suggested to us that it is because of fundraising issues. that they are not getting the level of money that they would like to or at least in the time frame they wanted to, and other democrats have said no, that's really not the issue and maybe it's more about who's actually giving the money or giving the in kind contributions, i should say, and money that necessarily wouldn't reflect well on them or that would tie them to certain unions or corporations, that they would rather not have to deal with the here and now and sometime in the future when this will be perhaps less of a story. host: to repeat what you said, republicans are not doing that, either, they said all along they would be waiting until later. guest: right. and again, both parties

o'clock both sides are doing what the law requires of them so nobody is violating the law, nobody is doing an end around the law, it's more or less on the democratic side that they pledged to offer up more and have decided in the end to go back and not offer up a full picture that would go above and beyond what the republicans are already doing and have never said otherwise. republicans have always said we're going to go ahead and file the forms we need to file, when we have to file them. host: republicans had a goal of raising $55 million from companies to pay for conventions, democrats had a goal of $36 million, and they had made pledges not to take money directly from corporations. different than what the republicans had said they would do. let's go to don, democratic caller in louis center, ohio. welcome. callcol good morning. host: good morning. caller: greetings from the state that is the birth place of seven presidents, the united states, ohio. i would submit that the

primary system as it is in effect today knee gates any need for a convention. practiced itionally -- traditionally, conventionsor with there to choose the candidate from each party. right now, it's just an opportunity for people to get together and since the nominee has been chosen, so what's the purpose? i do not check the box at all. i think we have to get back possibly to the smoke-filled room where the leaders of each party who have obviously got there or should have gotten there by grassroots politics of their particular party choose who they think would be the best candidate, and i look back at here in ohio, president mckinley, when he was campaigning, he

did all his campaigning off the front porch, as harding did, saved a lot of aggravation and believe me, living in ohio, and especially in the columbus area, we're just inundated with these campaign ads on television. it's almost a -- you can hardly stand watching them. you turn off the tv and wait a little while. but anyway, we need to go back to where party leaders get together and choose whom they think is going to make the best candidate and get rid of all this business of traveling and the campaign spending, et cetera. host: thank you for your call, not only the birth place of presidents but also neil armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon. we've been talking about him this morning because he died yesterday at the age of 82. dave levinthal, our caller from ohio, brought up the deluge of ads that he's

experiencing now. talk about that and we'll get into the first part of this call. guest: if you live in a state like ohio, virginia, colorado, florida, new hampshire, any swing state which ultimately these seven, eight, nine, 10 swing states are going to be the deciding factor in the presidential election, you're probably getting deluged right now, but it's probably nothing even compared to what you're going to be getting after the convention. in september. october. leading up to the november election. because there is so much money to spend. both sides have an incredible amount of money to effectively blanket the air waves, to saturate the air waves, and that's not even considering and counting all the outside organizations that are spending also record amounts of money on television and radio and also internet advertising, too, that we talked about before. but there are organizations like superpacs which can raise and spend unlimited money, nonprofit organizations that have political leanings that also can raise and spend unlimited sums of money, but don't even

have to disclose where that money is coming from, which is another issue. but the bottom line, again, for voters, is that if you live in one of these swing states, either better turn your television off or get used to it because for the next few months this is all you're going to see. host: the national journal about thes toups, there are states that are really in the mix now, those are in yellow, the ones in blue are solid are likely democratic, red, solid or likely republicans. you can see which states are seeing the action, presidential campaign visits and the like. our caller from ohio also just talked about whether the conventions are necessary at all. are we seeing any movements in congress or from washington to outright get rid of them, not just take public funding out them but skip them all together? guest: there's been no major call at least to this point to get rid of them. a lot of people would like to see a convention that actually is more in the moment than they do today from a nominating standpoint, and a lot of folks say all right, if you're not going to choose your president at your convention, why even have a

convention at all. then can you get into some of the counter arguments to that, this is a unifying event, this is important for the party, it's a stage where they can really present their platform and ideas to the american people, there's a communications value to it and a p.r. value to it and like it or leave it, that's sort of the argument and the oophriding reason why the conventions do exist today. but the idea of going to a system where you would get rid of primaries or do away with the process that we have in place right now, to nominate a president, highly unlikely. of course, when william mckinley or warren g. harding were running for president you didn't have things like television or twitter or facebook or anything else that today is the bread and butter of politicing. so you can deride the system for what it is right now but in part of the system is what it is because of the technology and the interlocking communication that we have right now that allows for messaging to come

in just about any form that you can possibly think up. host: and if conventions are necessary any longer, the parties are becoming unnecessary as well and should be done away with. baltimore, maryland, sherry, independent caller, good morning. caller: good morning. i was looking at your show and i was thinking that everybody in america needs to wake up and realize what's going on here. barack obama -- i don't think that the senate is the problem but the congress is the problem and senators from -- >> host: what do you think about conventions? >> caller: the conventions, oh my goodness. they're spend sog much money. what about people in america that are starving, don't have houses, don't have cars, don't have ways to finance their lives. i think that it's crazy. i just think it's crazy.

host: brett tweets income the parties of the federal government reimburse the cost of the host city for the services they provide, such as police? guest: for the homeland security aspect of it, there's a -- i believe it comes in the form of a block grant for an inelegant term that goes to fund the actual security aspects of it, too. when it comes to the actual security that's provided at a local level, there is reimbursement. i apologize, i don't know the exact details of it. but certainly, if they're going to good he and throw those, they're getting the opportunity to recoup some of the money put out for the locality for the event as a whole. but to the caller's point, just want to note one thing. there was an effort that this election cycle took place, it was called americans elect, and it was effectively an effort to circumvent the two-party convention system, which would allow for a sort of nationwide primary, if you

will, and allow people to go ahead and select the candidate without a nominating convention, do it as sort of a third route. it was very different, at least in structure, compared to, say, the reform party of 1992 and 1996, when ross perot was a candidate. but ultimately, it didn't go anywhere. and they weren't able to, based on what they had set out to do, find a singular candidate to put up and get on the ballot. romer, who was a republican candidate for a while, he was suggested as somebody who might be involved but ultimately it never came to pass and that effort, although a lot of people thought it was a great idea and something they bought into, not enough people bought into it enough in order for it to kick off and it's curious to see over the next four years whether they'll revisit it and try to give it a go again. host: dave levinthal for politico, he tpolgs political influence and power, he

cowrotes political influence, intelligence and analysis on lobbying. thank you very much for coming in. guest: thank you. host: we'll continue our discussions this morning, looking at financing and funding in campaign 2012. coming up next, david bossie, president of citizens united talks about the impact of the supreme court case on campaign 2012. we have a roundtable discussion on the impact of unregulated money in this year's election, also looking at the total money raised by the campaigns and superpacs. we'll be right back

>> i think our job is not to ask gotcha questions. >> juliana goldman first covered candidate barack obama in 2007 and became bloomberg's white house correspondent in 2009. >> but it is trying to get fair answers out of him and that's how i approach my job. i'm not looking to catch, you know, when jay carney does a press briefing i'm not looking to necessarily catch him in a well, that's not what you said the other day. it's really just trying to get information to inform people with. >> more with julianna goldman, tonight at 8:00 on c-span's q & a. >> spend next weekend in ohio state capitol columbus as book tv and american history tv join c-span's local content vehicles to look behind the scenes at the history and literary life of ohio's largest city. on book tv on c-span2, browse the rare books collection at ohio state university and

from american homicide, randolph ross charts murder from colonial times to the present. on american history tv on c-span three from the historic state house, learn about ohio's connection to our 16th president, also, discover how the prehistoric hopewell people created and used the largest geometric earth works in the world. throughout the weekend, history and literature with book tv, american history tv, and c-span's local content vehicles on c-span2 and 3. we're looking at a live image of the tampa bay times forum in tampa, florida. that is a republican convention, soon to start this week. joining us now in "washington journal", david bossie, president of citizens united. good morning. >> good morning. host: thank you for being here. remind us of what your intent was with the case that went all the way to the supreme court in which you were arguing essentially was being able to play a movie but it's had broad implications. guest: sure.

our case was simple. it was a fundamental first amendment case. we were told back in 2004 and again in 2008 that we could not, we did not have the right under the federal election law, to make and advertise documentary films about candidates. when at the same time, michael moore was doing the same thing. so we decided to challenge mccain-feingold on first amendment rights, on first amendment grounds, and of course, the victory was much more profound, but nonetheless, it was we took it to the court because i wanted to be able to make films from it and really participate in the discussion, which is really what the first amendment is all about. the first amendment protects all speech, but the most important protected speech you said the first amendment is political speech. and i felt that it was important to be able to participate, and i wasn't going to let the federal government tell us that we couldn't do it. so we -- that's why it's really not defending.

we actually were in the offensive position in this case. and i think the federal election commission felt that we wouldn't do it, i think they underestimated us a little bit and of course, ted olson, who argued my case for me, just was a brilliant, brilliant lawyer who loves to win cases at the supreme court, and does a great job at it. so we have been blessed to have a big victory and this week, we're going to have the hope and the change, our film on barack obama, premiering at the republican convention. next week it will premiere at the democrat convention, and we're really excited to roll it out around the country over the next couple of months. host: if you'd like to talk with david bossie, here are the numbers to call: >> matt bye wrote in the "new york times" last month a piece asking how much has citizens united changed the

political game, and here are things he wrote. what citizens united intensifies by no means created is a world in which a big part of the money in a presidential campaign is spent by political entrepreneurs and strategists who are unanswerable to any institution. does that concern you at all? guest: it's always been like that. i mean, i think his point is we didn't create that, not at all, as a matter of fact. you know, i enjoy the discourse. i enjoy -- i don't like the negativity that a lot of campaigns get into, but i enjoy the public policy debates. i think when you disagree with speech, the answer in our -- and our founding fathers agreed with this, more speech is the answer, not less speech. you know, having big brother, having the government being able to censor speech is not the answer. look, we don't necessarily in america agree with everybody but we fundamentally agree that they have the right to say it. and that's really what our

case was about. we wanted to have the same rights that michael moore did. >> host: let's go to the phones and hear from jim, a republican caller from clinton, south carolina. good morning. jim, are you with us? caller: yes. can you hear me? host: we can, go ahead. col i wanted to quickly say a lot of your callers call up and the democrats always republican the -- complain the republicans are deceptive and not clear on what they are, but yet so many of your democratic callers call on the republican line and pretend to be a republican or ex republican or some kind of thing and they say all the talking points and it gets to the point where you can't listen to the beginning segment because they're so obvious and you don't cut them off and it's aggravating but they claim everything else is unfair. and i really applaud this fellow for the work he does and i just wanted to say that free speech is everything and if people complain about the -- all of the, oh, pomp and

circumstance of the conventions, then don't watch them. they do have power, they do have a vote. they don't have to watch and be caught eh bi-an emotional ad, they can do their own research, and to say they have no -- therefore no hope and they're going to give up everything is ridiculous. but thank you for doing your work, sir, and thank you for free speech, and it's, again, the democrats claim they want to be fair but they want to shut down the other side and don't want to play by the rules and that it's ridiculous if you guys can't get ahold of that and stop them from calling on the wrong lines. host: i'm sorry you feel that way, but we have the three lines set up to get a diverse range of viewpoints here. let's get a response from david bossie. guest: his fundamental point is, from my standpoint, and i appreciate the kind words, obviously the left has always been that way. you look at hollywood, and i use this as an example, you

know, will ferrell and zach -- and i can never pronounce his name but he's an incredibly funny comedian, in the "hangover", one of the great actors of today, came out with this film a couple of weeks ago and of course they became instant experts on campaign finance because they were attacking citizens united in the film by name. and so we found that to be a little interesting that you cross over into the lexicon of hollywood and aaron sorkin writes us into his hpo show "the newsroom". unfortunately, none of them know what they're talking about. if will ferrell for one minute had somebody in the united states government telling him he couldn't make a movie, he'd be standing on the soap box, on the corner, screaming at the top of his lunging about it. -- lungs about it and it's only because in hollywood they're a protected class, they can do anything they want, they don't live in reality.

and it's not that they don't live in reality politically or personally, they don't live in reality when it comes to the laws because hollywood is a protected class under the media exemption, just like c-span, "the new york times". they are protected class. so they don't ever consider that the average american actually is a separate class under the federal election rules, and so will ferrell can do anything he wants, but the editors at "the new york times" can do anything they want, but your average american can be prosecuted for doing the very same thing, so that's what our case was about. host: here is that movie, our guest mentioned "the campaign" by will ferrell. how are your films different than what they're doing? guest: i apologize to zach for not being able to pronounce his last name but he's incredibly funny. our films are documentary films. obviously, theirs are theatrically released dramatic films or com he'dic films. what -- comedic films.

what we want to do is participate in the public discourse and public process. that's all we wanted. but when the federal government can actually tell you that you are going to create a willful violation of the law, when is what they told us in 2008, punishable by five years in prison, per count, that gets your full and complete attention, and when you're just a guy trying to make a movie and advertise it, and it doesn't matter that it's political, it doesn't matter in my opinion which side you were on -- i was making a movie about hillary clinton because i and every smart guy in washington knew without any doubt that she was going to be the nominee that year, so i spent a year making a film about hillary clinton. looks like i didn't -- i wasted my time on the campaign side of it, but i obviously took it to the supreme court, even after she was not a candidate, because it was the government told me i couldn't do it and i just felt that it was wrong. host: david bossie. heats hear from pennsylvania, david, an independent caller.

good morning. caller: hello. host hi, you're on the program. caller: we're not talking about making movies here. we're not talking about free speech here. we're talking about unlimited campaign contributions by major corporations, and it's destroying this country. guest: could you make -- i appreciate the thought, but name one contribution by one major company. name one specific contribution by one specific company to a candidate. col call we're not privileged to that information. guest: because it's illegal and it doesn't happen. people think that that's the case because the left is out there saying it every day. so it becomes fact. the facts are before the citizens united case, corporate contributions were illegal. the facts are after the citizens united case, guess what, corporate contributions are still illegal. now, corporations can now

give to the party and to c4 organizations like the chamber of commerce, but that isn't -- you know, what's wrong with that? host: they can also give to superpacs. so let's look at the numbers we're talking about. here's something from pro pu puw. blica, looking at the biggest donors, the biggest payees in pacs, restore our future. we're looking at $89 million. that's a pac that supports mitt romney. american crossroads, $40 million. also republican pac. priorities usa actions for president barack obama, $24 million. we can go through the list and see the individuals who were supporting these pacs. guest: individuals. i'm interested. because i don't have that list. but it's interesting to see what size corporate gifts are. most of those are rich guys who may run a company, but

they give under their own name. not the -- not corporately, number one. number two is they're disclosed. these people, we know about them because they and the companies or the organizations they give to actually disclose. they disclose those gifts. so i just find it, you know -- look, i want barack obama's organization that supports him, his superpac, to raise money from bill maher and all of the left wingers in hollywood that give to him, all the democrats across the country that give to him, terrific. you know, karl rove and american crossroads is doing the exact opposite. that's called more speech. that's not a bad thing. the american people are very smart. they make fundamentally very good decisions and i don't think that rules being put in place to limit what the american people know is a smart thing. i think it's a slippery slope. host: here's what scott tweets in, citizens united

snuffed out middle class and poor class voices. we're back to buying a politician. guest: i don't even know what that means. look, our case was about a film. our case was about a film and its advertising. obviously the supreme court felt that mccain-feingold was unconstitutional, on even more fronts than just the one we were challenging. and so we feel very good about the decision. we feel very good -- look, part of the problem is that the congress doesn't change the limits. so you know, right now, the fcc makes everybody -- the sec makes everybody file a $250 donor. who really cares about a $250 donor? the reality is if you set that bar at $1000 or $2500, it might be a little easier, because the burden, the overburdensome nature of the regulatory scheme that the

federal election commission sets up, you know, it really drowns out people from participation. and that's really the big issue for me. host: jane, republican in asheville, north carolina, good morning. caller: hello? host: jim, you're on the air. caller: i thought you said dan. i'm sorry. thank you c-span and mr. bossie, very much, for your contribution this morning. guest: thank you. caller: i really like the way you handled the last caller. or caller before last. the one that was talking about, you know, the contributions and who could he name. i thought that was very good. because no one can name them. and i do believe that it is the first amendment right, and bravo to you and your organization for standing up for -- someone standing up for our constitution, that is actually doing it. you know, everybody talks

about it but you never see anybody doing it. one of the things that i would like to reiterate, and i hate to go back to the last guy, but he was talking about how they roll back the spending to 2008 limits and on the campaigns, which was roughly $50 million per campaign. something along that line. of course, we know, all know, there is going to be more spent, regardless. but the fact is they talk about for the last four years how all the money is frozen and no one is getting the money from here and there, but when the campaign comes along, it seems to come out of the cracks and the floor and the walls and falls from the sky. that's really all i wanted to say and god bless america and the constitution. guest: well thank you. you know, it's interesting, in 2008, the only person, because of the ruse, because of mccain-feingold, the only

person who was really adversely affected by those rules was john mccain. barack obama chose to not participate in the process and therefore, he was able to raise and spend a lot more money than john mccain. if i remember correctly, john mccain was outspent almost 2-1 combined, meaning john mccain, the rnc and prorepublican groups as opposed to barack obama, the dnc, the unions and obviously the democrat groups. so john mccain was the only one who was adversely affected by it. in 2010, you had the reverse. conservatives came forward and really outspent the liberals. you know, it was definitely a -- we beat them. i just don't remember by how much. but this year, i think you're going to have a very close race, and it's going to be close from a monetary standpoint as well. host: let's look at the numbers, campaign 2012, the types of spending that are

happening, superpacs, nearly $200 million. the parties, democratic and republican parties, about $32 million. and then other includes corporations, unions, individuals and other groups, spending about $62 million. we're getting those numbers from the center for responsive politics. this guy, citizens united is not simply about making a movie. the supreme court overreached on this decision big time. what do you think when people like -- go ahead. guest: but that's -- that's his opinion, and i appreciate his opinion. it's an opinion on the result. not on what we started with. we started with a -- what i considered a very simple approach in a first amendment case, which was about a film, about a documentary film, political film, and its advertisements. that's where we started. it was pretty -- i thought it was fairly narrow. what we ended up with was a

lot broader and it pweupl a landmark decision. people can have their opinions on both sides but those are the decisions of the supreme court, not of citizens united. and so we -- i applaud their decision. but that's -- i just need people to understand it's not why we went. it's a result of what we did. but i think it's a much better situation. host: david bossie, president of citizens united. what do you think when you hear mitt romney say corporations are people too? guest: you know, he has not actually spoken a lot about the citizens united case, but i've heard -- look, you know, the supreme court has said that money is speech. you know, years and years and years ago, long before the citizens united case. and so what the supreme court did in our case was say that corporations, a group of people who were working together, which is what a corporation is, have the same

rights. and so i think that as long as corporations are held accountable -- and by the way, it is funny, and i go back to i think our first caller -- corporations are not giving. you know why corporations are not giving? corporations are not giving because they're worried about the fallout in the marketplace. you know, you don't want a sneaker company giving some politician you disagree with, then you don't go buy their sneakers anymore or a cereal company or anyone else that you might be doing business with. and fundamentally, worker's compensations are hated by people who are very conservative. not politically conservative, conservative in the way they want to retain their jobs. they don't want to be ousted over some political gift. and so you're not seeing it. and that's what i try to say to folks is, you know, some of the more or or -- or individually owned companies, like you see donald trump, for instance, he can participate in the process,

people can either stay at his hotels or go golf at his resorts if they so choose. he clearly participates and believes in his first amendment right. other than people like that, you don't see a lot of people giving corporately. you see people who are successful businessmen, giving individually, on both sides. and that's a perfectly fine way to do it. >> derek in minneapolis, joining us on our independent line. hi there. caller: good morning cspan, good morning america. host: good morning. caller: typically, i don't like more money in politics, only because what's not regulated -- you know, we get bombarded with a bunch of different advertisements from all parties and typically i don't like it just because nobody is holding them to are they actually telling the truth about somebody else and a lot of it is personal, but what i like about this is -- and i respect you, david, and i congratulate you on your

victory at the supreme court -- >> guest: thank you. caller: i like your honesty about one thing, you went for one thing and it opened up the pan dora's box for the other. what i don't agree with is i do not believe that a corporation is a person. however, they do pay taxes. so there is some speech there that they should be entitled to, and really, a lot of this, which really gets to the heart of it. is that the rebels, the democrats, have been getting this unbelievable support from the unions for years. >> that's right. >> i think the last presidential election, now, they spent like $200 million of their -- the dues they get from their workers, they spent for this political activity. now, these are people in the unions that a lot of them don't even want to contribute to these parties or to the democratic party, but they're due, so you've been very successful and probably bugging a lot of liberals and

democrats for many, many years to come. so congratulations. guest: thank you. and to be candid, that is -- that is in my opinion one of the big upsides of our victory, is that it leveled the playing field against the unions, which is why the left, why the liberals in congress, go so haywire. they had, when they controlled the house of representatives, what they considered an incumbent protection operation, which was union membership money, and an unfettered access to it. so you know, what this did is really level the playing field, by creating an opportunity for american action at work, for american crossroads, for all of these independent organizations that now are created and follow the regulatory requirements of the federal government and do things exactly as necessary. i will say to the caller, i appreciate it, i will say one thing about the tv ads.

when we make a tv commercial, we have to submit that to the television station or network that we're doing, and they have their own approval process, and if you notice on ads these days, especially independent ads, they're sourced right on screen, so it's hard sometimes to read the sourcing, but it might say roll call or it might say some vote they gave, they may say that a bill number that they voted on, but television stations have, over the last many years, several years, gotten much better at regulating their own on air tv spots and making -- and they'll send you back a tv commercial, even if you didn't do it on purpose, they'll say hey, we don't have a source on this vote, or on what you say in this statement. please source it on screen, and so that happens. and i think people don't realize that when you see tv commercials, look for those -- look for that sourcing

because it's on a lot of advertising now. host: democratic caller in oklahoma city, steve, joining us now. good morning. caller: hi, good morning, thank you for having me on. i had a question for you. this whole idea between speech being money and on top of that, corporations being people, is that what the founding fathers really had in mind? and i think about the billions that are spent on this campaign, this session, probably over a billion dollars, couldn't you make a lot of jobs with that? and i think you're just a swift vote filmmaker. guest: i have three films coming out this week, so you know, i hope any one of them is as successful as that. you know, look, this isn't the founding fathers, this is five members of the united states supreme court. that's who decided. you know, the founding fathers aren't around. i do believe that the founding fathers who belved in anonymous speech, who wrote the federalist papers, anonymously, you know, i think that these men who are

our founding fathers believed in giving their lives, their liberty, their sacred honor. and you know, it really is -- those are big ideas in this day and age where you have the hustle and bustle of today. but i will tell you, they believed in anonymous speech, they believed that political speech was the singly most important thing. they didn't say corporations are individuals, but political speech. so i think that the united states supreme court is who you're kind of directing your question at. i don't know because we don't know what they were thinking or deliberating. i do know we won, and i know we had five members of the supreme court, which by the way, the left, the liberals in congress, chris von hallens and chuck schumer who pwhrab about our case on a daily basis who fundamentally want to limit peoples' free speech and want to take it away, you know, they don't

understand what the supreme court was doing. so i think that they are -- we should be having a conversation with them about what they want. host: he's one of the efforts by congress to fight back, their campaign, finance reform endorsed by nancy pelosi and other house recommends, earlier this month, when the house is still in session, the agenda disclose amend reform elect, it calls for legislation to overturn the citizens united case by amending the constitution to provide for public finance campaign -- campaign financing through a small donor matching program to restricting ballot access, including voter i.d. laws and disclosing nonpolitical groups, those organized as social welfare nonprofits and trade associations, to disclose their donors when they run political ads. so not elements of that relate to citizens united, supreme court case. but what do you think about the legislation? guest: i find it absolutely ridiculous on its face, and

be careful what you wish for. this is what the american people should be afraid of, and i'll be candid, because the second this became law, the very organization and organizations -- and people behind it, would then be criminally held accountable if they wanted to do again. what these people are doing is dangerous in my opinion. they want to outlaw speech. they want to outlaw being politically active in this country. as i was talking about earlier, the class system between hollywood, the media exemption, and people without it, this is even more dangerous. this is -- in my opinion, insidious in its nature. what it's saying is a political class has more rights than the american people. and the american people shouldn't be able to participate. so these things have wide ranging -- just like our case, had a wide ranging effect. these types of things would

have a wide ranging effect. so do you want to take on your local school board, your pta, do you want to take on your local county councilman, do you want to take on a federal official, do you feel you've been put upon and want to stand you and say i'm going to participate in the political process? these things would not only outlaw it, it would be criminally punishable by prison time. that's what the american people have to understand. these people want to put new jail for political speech. i find that outrageous. host: a, an independent, in louisiana, good morning. caller: good morning and thank you for c-span. i believe this gentleman does have the right to make a film, you know, if he wants to counter something with that. i think the results of that have been very unfortunate. the idea that money is speech and corporations are people is ludicrous. and it's changed it from one

person, one vote, to 1 dollar, one vote. and when you have people that have the resources to contribute a million dollars or $10 million, it's like me contributing $10, it skews the whole election, and i will point out something you said about the union contributions. i was in the union during my time as a federal employee, and we were specifically prohibited from using union dues for campaign-related things. there was a specific political action committee that i had to voluntarily contribute to for that to be used for political purposes, so i wanted to clear that up. as far as citizens united, like i say, i applaud your right for making a movie and having the free speech and everything, but it has turned into quite a disaster for the political system.

and thank you. host: connecting to what al says, mike tweets in and says money is speech, yes. the amount of money is the volume. nothing in the constitution says you get to be -- put a 1 gram limit on it or have some kind of a cap. guest: look, we have a $2500 limit right now. i think that's too low. i think if you allow people to have greater -- i have no problem with the disclosure aspect of you individually give $2500, your name shows up on a federal election report. you know, the candidate that you give it to, the organization you give it to, if they're involved in campaigning, electioneering, have to disclose that. i have no problem with that. i think our limits are way too low. so you know, we want -- i just get back to we're about film making. that's what we were trying to do. that's why we have three films coming out this week at the convention, the hope and

the change -- >> host: tom is asking on twitter about it. guest: we have the hope and change, a film on barack obama, 40 democrats and independents in the film who all voted for barack obama talking about their lives over the past four years and why they're not going to be supporting him this year. we have a film on the occupy wall street crowd, the anarchist, the people who want to destroy the very fabric of this country. we have a call, docupi on mast, and mark cuban, his firm magna is putting that out in september and then a film with rick santorum, our sacred honor, premiering at the convention as well. wee just made that with him -- we just made that with him since he's been out of the race, three different films on three completely different topics. we went to the supreme court to be able to do that. that's what we're about. making films and advertising those films. they may be political, but that's what makes tkpwrerbg

great. host: david bossie, president of citizens united and citizens united production, thank you for coming in this morning. guest: thank you for having me. host: coming up next a roundtable discussion looking at unregulated money in this year's election, also the total money raised by campaigns and superpacs. we'll be joined by kim barker and rob biersack, from the center for responsive politics. we'll be right back. >> i think our job is not to ask gotcha questions. >> juliana goldman first

covered barack obama in 2007 and became bloomberg's white house correspondent in 2009. >> but it is trying to get fair answers out of him. and that's how i approach my job. i'm not looking to catch when jay carney does a press briefing, i'm not looking to necessarily catch him in a well, that's not what you said the other day. it's really just trying to get information to inform people with. >> more with julianna goldman, tonight at 8:00 on c-span's q & a. >> spend next weekend in ohio state capitol columbus as book tv and american history tv join c-span's local content vehicles, to look behind the scenes at the history and literary life of ohio's largest city. on book tv on c-span2, browse the rare books collection at ohio state university. and from american homicide, randolph roth charts murder from colonial times to the

present. on american history tv on c-span three from the historic state house learn about ohio's connection to aur 16th president. also discover how the prehistoric hopewell people created and used the largest geometric earth works in the world. throughout the weekend, history and literature with book tv, american history tv and c-span's local content vehicles on c-span2 and 3. >> looking at a live image of the tampa bay times forum, the site of the republican convention. it gets underway officially tomorrow. but due to concerns about hurricane isaac and the weather things won't actually get underway until tuesday. we'll be looking to the rnc to find out more about their schedule and how they're adjusting things as we get going this week. c-span will be there, gavel to gavel coverage, to bring you the platform and discussions and speeches that happen in tampa this week. we turn now to a discussion about fundraising

in campaign 2012, we're joined by bob biersack, joining us from washington and also kim barker, reporter from propulica, joining us from new york city. thank you to both of you for being here. let's start off with the numbers, bob biersack, winners and losers, who's coming out, republicans versusand mitt romney versus barack obama, as we look at campaign fund raying? guest: it's a dynamic thing. the president had a big advantage for a long time, as he didn't have any primary challenge, so he was able to raise money pretty effectively for more than a year. and as is the case after mitt romney is the presumptive nom know, then everybody settles down, the support from republicans comes to him, and so he's done very well in the last three months and everything points to a very competitive race, financially, as well as -- host: kim barker, give us a -- give us a sense of the narrative, seeing romney outpace barack obama in the

numbers game in july. guest: the narrative is that it's a lot of money going into politics, whether you're looking at the candidates' direct fundraising or the outside groups raising and spending money. the only ones that don't seem to be so involved at least is the parties. host: why is that? guest: because it seems like they're just not getting the sort of money that -- and they're not nearly as big a player they used to be and so that role has been taken over a lot by these outside spending groups. you don't hear much talk about what the republican party itself is spending on campaigns, you're hearing a lot more about groups like crossroads gps and american crossroads. ho host bob biersack, the superpacs, what kind of a game changer is this? we've been talking about this of course for a couple of years now but as we march into the final months what are you seeing? guest: as kim says, one of the things it does is spreads the money out in different directions away from the parties. she remembers maybe a time in the 1990s when parties could accept unlimited contributions from corporations or people. it's the sail kind of money

that we're talking about today. but they're not allowed to receive those contributions anymore based on mccain-feingold, so that money is filtered off into the other kinds of organizations. but it's basically the same kind of activity in a different direction. i think we'll see the parties more involved as the campaign goes forward, as we get into the general election. they're actually raising money with the candidates very effectively. we have the joined fundraising organizations, and the parties have much higher limits on how much can be given to them. so they're very effective in raising money. now especially the republican party has been very aggressive in the last few months and we're going to see -- we're starting to see that on television now in states where the battlegrounds happening, rnc is beginning to advertise now in support of the romny campaign and that will continue in the general election period. host: let's take a look at the numbers, number of dollars in the superpac spending and who they are. this is august 21, restore our future, $72.1 million. a republican pac. tell us more about it.

guest: it started to support the romney campaign early on. they were very aggressive in the primary campaign, especially in the early states, iowa, new hampshire, south carolina, attacking the other republican candidates, actually. so a lot of that money was spent early and aggressively in the primary. not necessarily directed at the'. these are people who have given very large contributions, in excess of a million dollars, in many cases, to that group. some of them, a lot of them, are financiers and people who may have been colleagues of mitt romney's in his past life, and very supportive, they think he'll be spoebtive -- supportive of their orientation, probably, as he goes forward and they've been big players in that. host: priorities u.s.a. action, at almost $20 million, and winning our future, at $17 million. bob biersack, who are these groups? guest: priorities u.s.a. is a similar organization supporting the president's reelection campaign, so these are democratic supporters, typically large contributors in the past as well, some of them from hollywood, some of

them from new york, and in the finance sector as well that are focused on the president's reelection campaign. concerned about all this outside money coming in the other direction and trying to counter that. name our future was one of the organizations that helped newt gingrich, i believe, in the primary campaign. they were these groups set town support each of the primary candidates, so they were really aggressive in that period, actually had the effect of extending the primary race for some months. santorum, gingrich and others may not have been able to keep up the campaign with their own fundraising but they were helped by these big contributions to the outside groups. host: kim barker, another one of the superpacs is american crossroads gps, karl rove's group, at nearly $15 million as of just a few days ago. how influential is this group? we saw karl rove saying for example he did not plan to give money to todd akin's bid in missouri and that created

some kraefs -- some waves. guest: it's american crossroads that has pared up with another outside spending group called crossroads gps so you've got the two different groups that work together and both of them were founded in part by karl rove. i think anything that karl rove does is incredibly influential. he's very influential in the party and he's very influential not just with these groups but with the strategy at large. so when he comes out and says he's not giving money in american crossroads, and crossroads gps is not going to support somebody, that has a huge ripple effect. host: we're talking about fundraising and campaign 2012. if you'd like to join the conversation, republicans can call: democrats: and independent callers: kim barker, as viewers see tv ads, as they hear radio ads, as they get literature and field the

phone calls, do you feel they have a sense of where the ads are actually coming from, is there a difference between an ad that comes from the campaign of president obama versus the superpac that supports him? guest: you know, what you see from the superpacs and from the other outside spending groups, the social welfare nonprofits, are ads that are generally more negative about the other side, than necessarily positive about the candidate they're supporting. so i think they give a chance to a candidate to distance himself, and we are talking about the men here, from negative, the idea of going negative on somebody else. you've got the priorities, u.s.a., action ad, for instance, that some people have said basically accuses mitt romney of causing a woman to get cancer. now, obama can distance himself from that by saying, i didn't coordinate with this, i had no idea this was coming out and that's what you're seeing, i think, the ability of these superpacs and outside spending groups to do, is to go negative and allow the candidate to

distance himself from that. host: a couple of headlines, "the washington post", romney raising money from traditionally democratic cities as he outpaces obama's fund racing and romneybase obama in july fundraising and overfunding. how strong are the fundraising efforts now? guest: it's reflective of the romney campaign is established as the nominee so republicans are supporting him in a way they would normally in a general election campaign. the weird thing about this year, this is the first time that both candidates are completely privately funded for the general election since 1972, really. and so it's a little experience for us. we're not hour sue -- not sure how the competition for funds is going to be reflected in the campaigns themselves and the voting outcome because we haven't seen this for a very long time, but they are emphasizing it because of these forces, because of the potential for lots of money to be involved in the race

quickly, everybody is desperate to raise the money, as much as possible. host: karl from annapolis, maryland. good morning. caller: -- >> looks like we lost him. kim barker, you mentioned a moment ago the groups that are not necessarily superpac, not tied to the committee. they are the social welfare nonprofits. you've done a lot of work at pro publica about the funding. tell us about the groups. guest: it's difficult to say who they're funded by. the groups don't have to disclose their donors. so they're essentially supposed to be nonprofits, 501c4s, their primary purpose is supposed to be serving the public good. and they're allowed to do a certain amount of lobbying, a certain amount of politicing and buying campaign ads, but their primary purpose is supposed to be serving, again, the common good. ever since citizens united,

there's just been an explosion in the ability of these groups and in the nimbleness of these groups to be able to buy ads, although they were enacted before the citizens united decision, so you're actually seeing crossroads gps spending more than its suzin, crossroads ads this election cycle and there's a feeling out there, you'd have to ask the donors themselves as to why they want to be anonymous but there's a feel thank the donors going to these groups are more necessarily corporations and groups that don't want it to be known that they're supporting a particular candidate. because there is a penalty to coming out in the -- as a corporation an supporting a candidate that people might not necessarily like. you had this happen with target in 2010 when they had given $150,000 donation to a candidate for governor, that it had him can out against gay marriage and folks called for a boycott of target. and i think there's a fear from certain corporations that they will be subject to that sort of retribution.

so it's easier for them to give to these social welfare nonprofits that don't have to disclose their donors. host: by kim barker in propublica, no tax return for you, the group says and it goes to literally trying to knock on doors and get in touch with the groups, the 501c4s and get this public information, they're supposed to give you after 30 days. guest: no one thinks that story would make them at least give us the documents, but so far, two groups have actually sent documents after that story. but we're going to start running a calculator next week, a rolling calculator, people can watch on our website, that is going to take a look at the fines as they rack up. of course the fine is only $20 a day for not giving those documents but at the same time, i think it's important to actually make them give them over, even though we're trying to get them from the irs at the same time. and you've got the bigger groups, crass roads gps gave

me their tax returns, american action network gave me their tax returns but it's more like the smaller below the radar groups that are ignoring my efforts to get those documents. guest: we've also tried to look systematically at the sources of funding and how the groups are organized. it's one of the big challenges this year, the disclosure process, which everybody assumed would be comprehensive, including all five justices of the supreme court who supported this decision argued yes you can spend this money but it needs to be disclosed, the sources need to the known and the implementation, there are problems with that. kim is quite right. for example, there's good evidence from just the targeted states that crossroads gps has spent more than $50 million in advertising that's not disclosed, that wasn't included in those numbers that you had before. but still, directed at the campaign. so the devil is in the details, the implementation

of the processes is really important and getting more comprehensive dollar is critical. what we're actually doing is going through annual tax returns, kim did this with -- with incredible resources devoted to it and we've done the same thing, to try to find not just how the money gets spend, which the groups have to report but also try to see unusual paths of money coming into them. so groups have to report what they spend, that means what they give to other groups and it turns out there's a network of organizations that pass money back and forth among themselves, and they can begin -- so we begin to learn about the sources of fund and see how it's constructed to some extent and it's something we -- but there are some things we don't know and it wasn't anticipated in this. >> guest: the way it was described to me, like the russian nesting dolls where you've got the groups handing this chunk of money to another group which hands it to another group which might give it back to the first group and you can consider all of this and count all of this as going towards your

social welfare primary purpose. as long as you can't -- you're not seeing that it's specifically geared for political ads. i think a lot of these groups give out grants and they consider that to be the social welfare purpose as opposed to getting out there and doing social welfare, whatever exactly social welfare is. host: kim barker, reporter for pro repubilc and bob biersack from center for responsive politics. and on our line from mississippi, good morning john. i think we've lost john. let's go to another caller, this time let's try our pasadena, maryland caller, david, democrat, hi there. caller: hi there, thank you. host: thank you for calling in. caller: kim just stole my thunder about disbursing and giving that money to that person and that person. your previous guest, when he challenged the caller to name one corporation that gave money, that's parsing the words.

they give the money to a pac, the pac does their bidding. that's one thing. the other thing is, number two, he made a comment, who cares about the $2.50 done -- $250 donor. that was infuriating to me because i'm a $250 donor. that's the problem. no one cares about the $250 donor now with what's going on. and the other thing is complaining about that -- that romney caused the -- i distinctly remember romney saying i don't control the pacs, i can't coordinate that -- >> guest: and that's what happens. you've now got the ability of the candidate to distance himself from the negative ads because they're not allowed to coordinate. that's like the one rule is you're not allowed to coordinate with a superpac or with any outside group like a social welfare nonprofit, so it allows a certain level of distance there, i had nothing to do with that negative ad,

that's something else that i have no control over. guest: it's a little simplistic to say that nobody cares about the $250 donor anymore. the president's reelection campaign, the reelection campaign for barack obama is quite dramatically emphasizing small contributions from individuals, hundreds of thousands around the country, still a large percentage of his funds, even as the incumbent president, coming in the amounts of less than $200. so the two campaigns have different structures, the romney campaign emphasizes more larger contributions from individuals, from other kinds of groups. that's been true for most presidential campaigns throughout history. it has nothing to do with republicans versus democrats or mitt romney versus barack obama. what's the normal model. the unusual one is the obama campaign. they've been able to use technology really effectively and raise money in small amounts in ways, especially in 2008, too, to show there's a way to be competitive financially with those kinds

of funds as well. so we can get carried away with the importance of the big contributions and the outside groups. they're absolutely going to be critical in this campaign. but there are other ways to do this. host: let's look at the difference in contribution, barack obama versus mitt romney. here we see contributions to president obama's campaign effort, from governor romney's effort. you see in dark green, small individual contributors for president obama's campaign, $137 million. from mitt romney, $37 million. and then you look at the amount of large individual contributors, the large contributors from president obama, $213 million, from romney, 106 million, but the important piece may be what percentage of the pie chart they're getting them from and you can see president obama is getting far more from his small contributors. guest: when we talk about large contributor, we're talking about people that have given $200, to $5000. so we're not talking about large amounts of money even

there. host: the numbers are from responsive politics where bob biersack is a senior fellow. how important are the smaller donors compared to four years ago, though, bob, as we look at the power of the superpacs and knew of so much more money on the table right now? do they still -- in our caller's question, do they still really matter in the big picture? guest: the conversation has changed, the campaign is different. in 2008, really it was a phenomenon, it was a remarkable experience. i think if you had gone to anyone who studied this stuff over the years and said someone is going to raise $750 million as a presidential candidate and it's mostly going to be small contributions everybody would have said that's nuts, it can't be done, but it was. we don't have the same phenomenon this year. it's structured differently. it's more like an illinois incumbent campaign but i think those contributions are still important and it's not by the odds, it's not partisan, it's whether or not you can get people excited at the grassroots level and have them use the technology that

clicking -- that clicks the mass, get $20 something happens and they get $20 more, $20 more and they're engaged in a way that's different, they're participating in the campaign in a way we want to encourage. i think it's good for democracy. host: and the money is reflective of the voter base that might turn out on election day. a comment that dave made, there should be no limits of any kind as long as all donors are disclosed, true transparency, don't be ashame of who you support. can you respond it to that kim barker? guest: i think that's definitely something that a lot of people feel. unlimited donations, unlimited contributions as long as names are disclosed. obviously as a reporter, i don't really have an opinion on that, but i do feel like it's a discussion we should be having. we should be having a discussion about the factta there is all this anonymous money out there and it seems to have happened almost accidentally, and it is almost as if this is just the way it is and everybody it seems, it's the way -- assumes it's the way it's always been so therefore,

that's the way it is into the future. but i kind of feel like in the reporting we've done and what the center spoke responsive politics and others have done is just really talking about the whole idea that there's all this money coming in from these groups that don't have to disclose the donor and at the very least we should be having a discussion about it. host: from newark, new jersey, our tk-plts' line, good morning. caller: good morning, you guys, thank you. i want to first say god bless america. i'm a college student, and i heard your caller talking earlier about how -- the effect of if we don't vote and i think that the reason people my age are being discouraged is because it's just a lot of -- you don't know who's running what and when there's a lot of money involved, a lot of people can get hurt, and the guy was corpos

being like people, they don't take responsibility and they don't care about what happens so that's how the conversation changes. people think they can give all this money out and assume it's going to go the right place or assume the person is going to do right by the people with the money. but i mean, that's not necessarily how it goes. you just get discouraged. host: are you planning to vote? caller: i'm definitely going to vote. i'm going to vote for barack. i figure the guy only had four years to try to clean up a mess and he's still cleaning up and he hasn't given up, so i don't feel like we should give up on somebody who's still trying. guest: i think there are really two pretty basic values that we hold pretty dear, that sometimes fight with each other, and this is why we need to have this discussion, as kim said. one of those ideals is that nobody should be able to stop

us individually or in groups from complaining about the government, especially. there's a natural tendency for the government to try to resist that kind of complaint, and we feel pretty strongly that as individual people and as organizations we should be able to express ourselves freely and that's not trivial. sometimes it competes, though, with the equal important notion that everybody has got a vote and everybody vote is equal. and so we need to try to balance those two values, as they sometimes struggle back and forth. i think right now, we're at a point where we've emphasize dollars the freedom of speech and the ability of money to be equated with speech, in ways that we're just going to have to it watch and see how it works and make judgments and adjustments over time, as we always have, to try to balance those. host: conrad from pennsylvania, independent caller, welcome. caller: good morning. yeah, i'm an avid c-span watcher. "washington journal"

specifically. and i normally tune in to the polices on the economics which i believe the money has a tremendous impact on our government. some years ago, they said we have the greatest politicians that money can buy, and i think that's our secret, you know, to correcting our problem here in america. we had an idea a couple of years ago that i presented to one of our congressmen here in the buck's county area, and because he was inundated with campaign money coming to his competitor, and he suggested, or i suggested to him, excuse me, that we limit the -- to the district in

which he run, to receive his monies, his campaign monies, for example, congressman has a district, a state senator has a district. they're really elected by the people from those areas. even though they have national recognition and national decisions to make. what's your opinion of the possibility of having a bill pass like that? guest: i don't see there being a lot of possibility for that. i think it's an interesting idea. but it would go straight against the whole idea of free speech and the whole idea of limiting the -- the idea of who could speak in a electric techs -- particular election. so it's a great idea that we should be having a discussion about all these dif possibilities out there, but i don't see there being a large incentive, particularly for congress, to pass something that would limit the amount of money they could get. .

guest: one of the things these numbers tell me is he had to spend money maybe more broadly than he planned, which is weird in a presidential campaign. because there were lots of different messages being disseminated in these 12 or so states that are really competitive, the president has had to be much more aggressive than he would have been. that's why there is more spending there. the other thing that shows is we had this debate on whether or not romney will overwhelm the president. those numbers don't bear that out. the president's campaign is

focused on that organization itself. they will try to do everything, the same way they did in 2008. that means grounding, getting people to the polls. host: what about the debt? guest: the debt has not been paid yet. that is really a snapshot of a particular moment in time. it doesn't suggest he is going to have a problem. guest: if it is a billion dollars, that would be different. guest: yes. host: yes, definitely in the millions. caller? caller: what puzzles me is i am 73, and i have been voting since 1960. i don't think in my whole life i

have met one person who was influenced by a political ad. you talk to people, and they have a good idea who they are going to vote for long before the primaries. they have an idea the direction they want to see the country to go in. what is it, $75 million that mccain raised after that? i think the whole deal is overblown. the other thing is, corporations are very good at avoiding taxes. i can't argue against that. but they also -- they are heavily, heavily influenced by laws. zoo -- so corporations need a way to put their view point across. i don't see anything wrong with that.

your station isn't bad, but most of these commentateors, commentators, except fox, are so bias. it makes me sick. host: if you are not influenced by the ads, how do you make up your mind? >> i watch your channel, all right? i read a lot. i probably read five books a week, ok? i have nothing else to do right now. you are also influenced by what has happened in your life, how our money has deteriorated and all these things. my first choice probably would have been ron paul. two years ago i was very influenced by obama. i was very intrigued by him. that was all from watching television, not from watching ads. the ads invariably lie,

distorte, whatever. that's why i say, anyone who quotes on what they see on campaign atsdz -- ads should probably be taken out and horse whipped. guest: i think you are right. who would ever say they were voting because they saw this ad. but i think the constant drumbeat of ads can seep into your sub conscious. you may think of it when you go to the polls. you may not think it is because of this ad, but it is because of this particular issue. the caller is right. no one sits there and says, that was a wonderful reason. that 30 seconds is the entire reason i'm voting for this particular candidate. consumetively they have been -- cumulatively, they have been

shown to have an affect. >> ads can be important when they are shaping their first impact. once i saw the law and i see their views and i am making judgments independently, then the ads become less important. except they may have some very short -- two or three days after it comes out, it may make an impression. but most of the decisions happy early in the process rather than later. one of the things now, living in virginia, i don't know how anyone sorts out these ads because they are one after ood. so the messages get a little muddled, at least they do in my mind. their effectiveness may be diminished, too. host: i must say, i feel sorry

for anyone that lives in the battleground states with all the ads. >> i grew up in ohio, and i commiserate with my family on the ads. host: california, virginia, north carolina, virginia, other states in the bottom five include arizona, new york rounding out the top 10 states for super pac spending. guest: a lot of those have to do with primary campaigns. for example, the texas race, there was a lot of high spending in that race. so a lot of that reflects the only activity in the primaries. it is more competitive in some sense. we will see that shift now to the six or eight states, the six

or eight senate races that that will be really important that will determine the control of the senate this year. it is almost as important as the presidential race in terms of policy going forward. in is a lot of attention there, too. host: our next caller from new mexico. independent line. caller: good morning. i think the man from wisconsin made an interesting point. if you recall scott walker, you would understand the effect of outside money in campaigns. because in wisconsin what happened was that there was this series of ads that said, recall was not the wisconsin way. people in wisconsin listened to those ads. no one knew who made them up or sponsored them. this is the rug doll syndrome. what i see -- and even after the

election, they had a difficult time finding out who ran those ads, and i have yet to know a specific person or a specific organization. the second thing i want to point out is when the supreme court made the decision, what had happened is we're using democracy to destroy democracy, and we're using money to destroy democracy. i feel this is probably one of the most horrendous decisions ever made by the supreme court. >> i can't really speak to whether it is the most horrendous decision ever made by the supreme court. it is the rule of the land now. everyone is trying to sort out what it means. the fcc hasn't really made ads to implement the decision. i think we are stuck in this no

man's land right now. the caller makes reference to an ad in wisconsin. many we're in a world now where one of these groups can incorporate in a state, never apply for recognition as tax exempt with the i.r.s., pay for a bunch of ads, not disclose, and then fold by the time their tax returns are due. that is an interesting place to be in. it is interesting to have these groups, so that by the time you get any idea who made them, the election is over, and who cares then? guest: and that gets back to, are we able to find out who is supporting these groups? who is behind them? as kim said, sometimes there will be organizations that create two separate sides. we have seen this in a lot of areas. people want to know where the money comes from, but where it

comes from is another side of the organization. it is the c-4 organization, the tax exempt group that passes money to the soup irpac. so it really tells you nothing about where the money came from. when you get into a situation where the rules reward this kind of clever manipulation, then you really have a problem. we need to look at how we structure the laws. host: bill, what kind of campaign ads are you seeing? caller: oh, i've been bombarded here, just like everyone else. my question is, i hear a reference many times that unions have on elections. given that 79% of the election force is nonunion, i am curious as to how much of an impact they tule -- actually have. guest: what unions have been

traditionally able to do is mobilize their members. they are active in get out the vote campaigns and ground efforts on election day. they really have been very effective at that. the only difference for unions is they have taken a much more positive perspective in support of candidates over time. corporations often give to both republicans and democrats. sometimes even in equal amounts as time goes on. but unions have been very committed to the democratic economy over time. that makes them in -- a target in some respects. but that's an advantage, there is no question. even small numbers of people if they are willing to get out the vote and go door-to-door, that makes an impact. host: there is a story in the new yorker called "schmooze or

lose." can you talk to us about what politicians have to do and how that is playing out in this election? >> i don't know exactly what they have to do because none of them have actually talked to me about it. but i would imagine -- you have a lot of dinners, take a lot of phone calls, you have someone out there dwho raises hundreds of thousands of dollars, they are going to be able to talk to you at the least, i would imagine. but i can't say specifically what obama is doing or what he doesn't like doing. bob? guest: in congress there are special offices set up a couple blocks from here where members will go over to the dnc or rnc and set up these calling centers. they will spend dollar for dollar calling possible donars during the time when they might

be on the floor where they might be developing policy. so all that distracts from the real work of the congress. this week we will see in tampa lots of examples, social events, dinners, lunches, cruises sponsored by special interest groups and organizations that are focused on helping republicans this week, helping democrats next week, but making that connection so that they do return the phone call, so that they are responsive or at least under your point of view. host: "a pool of only 25 people has given $221 million people. $52 million more than the combined donations of the 2.5 million voters who have given

200,000 or less. in other words, the top 002 -- the top .07% of donors are exerting greater influence on the 2012 race than the bottom 86%. >> much of that money is coming in from a small group of people. a lot of those people are becoming household names. what does that buy? i don't know. maybe it buys absolutely nothing. it probably gets you lunch at the least. but again, it is a discussion we should be having at the least. host: a south asia bureau chief, and spent two years on a project called trouble for the souls of islam. bob biersack is it -- is a

writer. he spent 30 years on the staff of the s.e.c. and helped develop disclosure rules. let's get a call from don on the independentent's line. hi, don. caller: there is no way average citizens can compete money-wise. but what people buy with their big money is the vote. that's the key. if enough people simply vote for the candidate that limits contributions to $200 or less, it won't matter how much money the big money candidates contribute. we have to force the kets to shoes between big money and small money, and we can do that with our votes.

so people need a choice between big money candidates and small money candidates they can go to http: the colbert super pac, vouch my vendetta dot org. then we can have a real choice. host: a caller from pennsylvania. are you seeing a lot of ads these days? caller: yes. i believe the problem is not the advertising and it is not the anonymous ads or who spent money on that? it is the problems where you have the courts giving the congressmen the power to take money from one citizen and give it to another. so obviously you are going to

have thousands of people out there wanting the money. you will have thousands of other people saying, hey, take his money instead, don't take mine. if you give congress the power to take from one individual or citizen and give to another, you are obviously going to have people asking for that money. >> that is probably the challenge of organize 0ing -- organizing your society. guest: that is going to be the problem. host: good morning. caller? caller: i would like for either one of your two guests to look at an article in the "star." there is a company that is i data -- that is a data mining

company. they have been analyzing private personal financial details of people all over the country for contribute tores -- contributors trying to locate people that can give anywhere from -- up to the $5,000 limit. this company evidently has not received any money for mr. romney who they are doing this data mining for. it is my understanding that this would be an in-time contribution which under federal laws is illegal. when people do things like that, and when there is no repercussions, you know, people or companies do these kinds of things, there is no repercussions from the federal

election commission, i begin to wonder what is my role even -- why should i bother to vote? i'm not even sure it is going to count. host: an article in "the star telegram" by jack gillum, the associated press. "fort worth companies use data mining to sort through americans' personal information, including their purchasing history and church attendance, to identify new and likely wealthy donors, the associated press has learned." bob biersack? guest: this is the nature of

technology today. both sides are doing this very aggressive. the obama campaign in 2008 had an elaborate system for mining data about individuals, finding out where supporters would be, mobile idsing them, getting them involved in the campaign. part of the thing that's troubling is this notion that nobody paid for this. you are quite right. if this was done and the campaign didn't pay for it, it would be an in-time contribution, and that would be illegal. if -- unless it was a subcontracting company that did this work for them. so the fcc would have to go through the facts and determine if there was a payment. and that takes time. the structure of the fcc was not designed to be quick and aggressive. it was zpined to make sure that

voters decide who gets elected. so it is slow and combersome and often frustrated. host: according to associated press there is no evidence of this company from romney's campaign. under federal law campaigns cannot use corporate treasury funds or resources such as proprietary data analysis for in-kind contributions to federal campaigns. kim, what is your opinion? guest: i would like to know what company it is or if there is a consultant arrangement. it is difficult to say without doing more research and reporting on it. host: we're reading from the star telegram. guest: you would also fault a company for not trying to do

data mining at this point, although they should obviously have to pay for it. host: let's go to our next caller. caller: i would like to know, are there any rules in place that would prohibit a foreign-owned company or corporation that may be backed by its nation's treasury to back a candidate? >> one of the things that has been maintained in the law is the tradition contribution of foreign nationals making contributions to politics in the united states at any level. you can't contribute to a mayoral candidate if you are a foreign national or foreign corporation. the rules are basically the same. as often is true, it gets tricky when you start talking about are there american subsidiaries?

so the pathways, the process, the opportunities for manipulating that system in the way that you suggest are a little troubling. they are there. sometimes people have gotten in trouble in the past. there are scandals in 1996, for example, where there were foreign moneys coming into campaigns. it is an issue, there are problems going forward, but there are prohibitions about it. >> take a look at what could happen in the social welfare nonprofits. it is very difficult to stop money from coming into these social nonprofits. it would be easy for them to set up "the yellow sunny day llc" and not disclose who is behind it and have that llc giving to the social nonprofit which would

be disclosed to the i.r.s. but not the public, and you would be able to hide the money very easily, i would say, to influence a campaign. that doesn't mean that the folks behind the campaign aren't going to know where the money is necessarily coming from. >> -- host: and kim barker is reporting from republica on these social welfare groups. let's go to connecticut and hear from rosalee on our independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. i have two things i want to bring up. i am very concerned about the amount of time that elected officials have to spend to keep their position. i have been watching this.

it is like two years of obama's term spent fighting to get money to get re-elected. there is something very wrong with this. how can the president like even do their job when they are fighting all the time to earn money? host: bob biersack. guest: that is one of the problems. that was the way the law was designed to take care of this. it is a challenge throughout the political process. it is something we should be concerned about. host: final comments, kim barker? guest: yes, it seems exhausting to raise money the entime you are in office.

host: thank you both so much. guest: thank you. host: that's all for "washington journal" today. we will be back tomorrow morning when the guests will include william march joining us from tampa to talk about the convention coming up. also we'll hear from ken jones. we also will hear from the founder of the group fighting poverty in tampa called starting rights now. that's all starting tomorrow at 7:00 eastern time on "washington journal." we leave you with the -- a view of the site of the republican convention which will get underway over the next couple days. have a good morning.

>> watch gavel-to-gavel coverage here live on c-span. next "newsmakers" with congressman sessions. [captions performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> congressman sessions, thank you for being with us. >> thank you. >> also joining us, national little editor for politico. thank yofo