The Big Corporations, They Sit In The Corporation Buildings, And They Act All...Corporationy.

We do not find ourselves linking to DailyKos often. However, Kos blogger "Adam B" has apparantly taken off his tin-foil. He recently posted a rational and well thought out analysis of the Citizens United decision.

In short, its really not going to change all that much:

• Before Citizens United:
  Corporations could make direct financial contributions to candidates in 27 states, but not in federal elections.
  In 26 states, corporations could run direct advertising for or against the election of a state/local candidate.
  In all 50 states and in federal elections, corporations could run "issue advertising" against candidates saying "Sen. [X] is wrong on this issue and is a bad person, so call him on the phone and say so," and as long as it didn't say "and you shouldn't vote for him" and wasn't too close to an election, it was legal.

• After Citizens United:
  Corporations can make direct financial contributions to candidates in 27 states, but not in federal elections.
  In all 50 states and in federal elections, corporations can run direct advertising for or against the election of a candidate.
  In all 50 states and in federal elections, corporations can run "issue advertising" against candidates saying "Sen. [X] is wrong on this issue and is a bad person" as well as "so don't vote for him."

Furthermore, Adam B doesn't even cover the tax incentives of only using "issue advertising." Issue ads are usually produced by a corporation's non-profit, tax exempt arm, while direct election ads can not be. Thus there is a large (say...around 35 percent) incentive to continue just utilizing issue ads that were legal and prevelant before Citizens.