Did Ross Douthat just jump the shark? Yes:
With the Republican primary season winding down, it’s time to celebrate two heroes of participatory democracy, two champions of the ordinary voter, two men who did everything in their power to make the ballot box matter as much as the fundraising circuit.
I speak, of course, of Sheldon Adelson and Foster Friess.
Adelson is the casino billionaire whose super PAC donations enabled Newt Gingrich to upset Mitt Romney in South Carolina and give him a scare in Florida. Friess is the investment manager whose super PAC donations enabled Rick Santorum to prolong the race through February and March. Both men are controversial; both have been cited as prime examples of the corrupting influence of great wealth on our politics. But both did more than anyone else to prevent the Republican primary from turning into a straightforward “money talks” affair.
Adelson and Friess, in a paradoxical judo move, have somehow preserved popular democracy and prevented the Republican primary from turning into a "money talks" affair by giving sh*tloads of money to two candidates who, unlike Romney and his "sturdy donor base," can't raise money via popular methods.
Jesus Hussein Christ, that's rich! Obviously Adelson must be a master of political ju-jitsu (Saul Alinsky's term, btw) to use so many millions to keep money from running politics.
Odd, because in the old days, long before he bought Las Vegas, he built his empire by brute force methods, as I know from our small company's dealings with him in the first part of the 1980s.. If he has changed his methods to rely less on overpowering his foes now that he has overpowering force, he's a hell of a lot better general than almost any successul general including Napoleon, who did much the opposite. Not bloody likely, though.