I am the Million Dollar Romney Donor

One of Romney's early political boosters is coming out today as the man who laid the untraceable million dollar golden egg in the Romney henhouse:

The anonymous donor behind the headline-making $1 million contribution to a pro-Mitt Romney super PAC is a former Bain Capital official with long ties to the candidate, who's asking the outside group to amend its filings, POLITICO has learned.

The check-writer is Ed Conard, who was a top official at Bain, the private-equity firm Romney helped create, and who has been a strong supporter of his over the years.

The donation, made to the super PAC "Restore Our Future" - which was founded by former Romney advisers and is able to take in unlimited contributions, but must report them to the FEC - showed up in the group's first round of filings. It was listed as coming from a W Spann LLC.

In a statement to POLITICO, Conard said, "I am the individual who formed and funded W Spann LLC. I authorized W Spann LLC’s contribution to Restore Our Future PAC.

"I did so after consulting prominent legal counsel regarding the transaction, and based on my understanding that the contribution would comply with applicable laws," he said. "To address questions raised by the media concerning the contribution, I will request that Restore Our Future PAC amend its public reports to disclose me as the donor associated with this contribution."

It really makes the point for campaign finance watchdogs, democrats, and people who value equal access to democratic communication means of communication. Romney's golden egg man was able to do all of this legally, within what is now normal in campaign finance. So if you have a few billion dollars, you can make an untraceable donation to a candidate of your choice without having anyone seeing your fingerprints on the bankroll in the candidates pocket.
It's times like this that I wish Sandra Day O'Connor hadn't resigned from the Supreme Court.

Good News for Democracy

It's nice to see Wikipedia getting some respect from the scholarly community. After all, everybody seems to use it, and it seems to work pretty well. This review of scholarship on Wikipedia's "Good Faith" culture points in some interesting directions about the democratized encyclopedia.

Wikipedia provides its excellent content because it has a wide variety of input, yet produces a class of users who are incredibly engaged. Partisans (called POV warriors in wiki terms) are certainly present in the wikipedia ecosystem, but their efforts seem to produce a synthesis with the moderating influences of the more engaged editors. It should be noted that this group operates as a sort of privileged class, but without any structural privilege. Highly engaged contributors are not paid, and their comments are subject to the same systems of feedback as any other users. They gain a larger influence by the brute force of how much they work on wiki edits, integrate into the community, and gain recognition from their peers.

Why is this good news for democracy? If we are to believe Joseph Reagle's theory that Wikipedia's culture results from the dictum to "assume good faith" and enshrining "neutrality" as the goal, we can gain some insight into how true democrats should approach voters. Respecting the views of others seems to have tangible results in wikispace; it might have similar results in a political culture. Secondly, a purported stance of neutrality does seem to create lasting consensus. Consensus building is a particularly neglected goal in the current political environment, as power is conferred once one candidate gets 50% of the vote plus 1. Wikipower certainly seems more likely to come up with good policy than electoral power.