It always stings—losing at your own game. Especially when you change the rules.
Progressive advocacy groups MoveOn.org and MAYDAY.US have been running a video contest to expose the cozy relationship between money and politics, but it is the submission by conservative advocacy group American Commitment that is about to take home the win.
With over 20 times as many votes than any other submission, American Commitment’s video highlights progressive donor Tom Steyer’s role in the 2014 midterm election cycle. Steyer has personally donated almost $43 million dollars to liberal candidates this year, the largest individual war chest funding outside spending groups.
American Commitment’s submission meets the contest criteria to “make a 30-second ad to wake up America to the crisis of big money in our politics” but handily undermines MAYDAY.US and MoveOn.org’s intention of criticizing SuperPACs and conservative big donors.
In addition to viewers’ votes, the contest includes a panel of judges: George Takei, Jason Alexander, Zephyr Teachout and Cenk Uygur among them.
It became clear the conservative submission would win as early as last week and the contest moderators responded by giving viewers with hopefully the proper political orientation a wee bit more time to vote.
Previously, the rules stated that the “Contest ends at 5:00 p.m. ET on Thursday, October 16, 2014. The sooner you post your video, the more time you’ll have to get votes,” reported The Daily Caller.
The rules were later changed to create a designated voting period: “Contest submissions ends [sic] at 5:00 p.m. ET on Thursday, October 16, 2014. The sooner you post your video, the more time you’ll have to get votes. The 24-hour voting period begins on Thurdsday [sic] at 5pm ET, and ends on Friday at 5pm ET, October 17th, 2014.”
Someone with a little less panic in their fingers later changed the rules to their current manifestation, which reads: “Video submissions ended at 5pm ET on Thursday, October 16, 2014. The 24-hour voting period began on Thurdsday [sic] at 5pm ET, and ends on Friday at 5pm ET, October 17, 2014.”
This change is actually significant. It creates a 24-hour voting period, negating the votes that the videos racked up since the contest began.
“Pretty funny that liberal groups who pretend to hate money in politics are driven to panic and willing to embarrass themselves with a last-minute rules change to forestall the possibility that a submission about by far the biggest donor in America might win their contest,” American Commitment’s Phil Kerpen told The Daily Caller. “Steyer has spent $42M+ this year, more than the top 31 Republican donors combined. But he’s a liberal, so they love him.”
I guess that’s one way to put “democracy in action.”
