http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/01/21/campaign.finance.ruling/index.html?hpt=Sbin

Three things occurred to me:

1. It seems to me that anyone could now setup and fund a L.L.C. and dictate in their will that money/interest made by the LLC must be expended towards political commercials. So after they die, they'll still be able to directly impact politics.

2. Along similar lines, I wonder what kind of impact this decision will have on VC funding? If you're a VC and your primary goal is to change society - then you may decide that it is now easier to change society via political commercials than by funding startups. For that matter, the same issue may come up with regards to scholarship funding (does funding a scholarship meet/fit your stated goals more than funding a political cause)? I'm just saying the equation may have changed for some people.

3. How long will it take before some corporation(s) decides to pay for advertising time not to show a political commercial - but rather to keep political commercials from being shown in the same time slot. Or maybe some corporation decides to block only certain types of political commercials from being shown. Normally they may consider it a waste of money - but on the other hand they don't need to spend any money creating a commercial. And it could generate some goodwill towards their paying customers. So again, maybe the equation has changed.

Or maybe corporations subsidize traditional advertising (non-political) to the point that the broadcast company makes more money from traditional advertising than political advertising. The subsidies cost wouldn't be prohibitive, and the advertising time would still be filled by advertising. It's just that political advertising would pay less to the broadcast company.

To put it another way, what's to stop a corporation from telling a television station: "We'll pay you $50,000/day for the 2 weeks leading up to the election not to accept advertisements from Candidate A."