Huffington Magazine Issue 72 | Page 59

CRACKING THE CODE this stuff,” said Meredith McGehee, policy director of the Campaign Legal Center. “There’s always a tendency within any coalition to gather around in a circular firing squad and shoot each other.” Though they’ve welcomed the new crop of campaign finance reformers, longtime activists believe the focus of reformers should be on building political support for their ideas in Washington. “A lot of times it’s the down and dirty how-do-you-win-this in politics,” McGehee said. But those pushing to upend the way campaigns are financed say that they need to look beyond the machinations on Capitol Hill and embrace a bigger, bolder vision. “Nearly everyone in the movement and outside of it accepts the fact that we are going to need to build a huge grassroots movement if we have any chance of doing anything,” said Josh Silver, CEO of Represent.Us, a new reform group organizing around its own bill to empower small donors and reform lobbying laws. To do that, Silver said, there needs to be a significant shift in how reformers talk about the issue. “You have to shift to corruption and away from democracy and HUFFINGTON 10.27.13 campaign finance reform and getting money out of politics,” Silver said, echoing the language Lessig has used. “The top-line message has to be corruption. The simple reason is if you go to a Walmart or you’re at a campground or you’re at church and you talk to somebody about campaign finance reform or even democracy, their eyes tend to glaze over. If you talk to them about political corruption, they get fired up and start talking about how much they agree with you.” INSTEAD OF LOOKING to the traditional reform effort’s backers — typically large foundations like the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, which tend to dole out small amounts of cash for isolated projects — the new class of reformers are