If you look at the two largest Super PACs on the Romney side, they have raised $122 million. By July they had, anyway. And in contrast, the two largest supporting Super PACs that are supporting Obama have raised only $30 million by that period, so it’s a very big differential. But it doesn’t begin to explain how much of a gap there is in money. There’s an even bigger gap in other kinds of outside groups that are not Super PACs — there are nonprofits that don’t disclose their donors and there the differential is just overwhelming. Obama is being completely out-raised in these secret donations which are piling in for Romney at this point.

— The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer on Fresh Air

“The Supreme Court is saying that campaign spending is a matter of free speech, but it has set up a situation where the more money you have the more speech you can buy,” Axelrod says. “That’s a threatening concept for democracy.” He adds, “If your party serves the powerful and well-funded interests, and there’s no limit to what you can spend, you have a permanent, structural advantage. We’re averaging fifty-dollar checks in our campaign, and trying to ward off these seven- or even eight-figure checks on the other side. That disparity is pretty striking, and so are the implications. In many ways, we’re back in the Gilded Age. We have robber barons buying the government.”

-from Jane Mayer’s New Yorker article, Schmooze or Lose

Sixty-six percent of the Republican voters in Mississippi don’t believe in Darwin’s theory of evolution.

— Jane Mayer.

He has described the Constitution as only protecting the religious freedom of Christians and has said that other groups, since they were not there when the Bill of Rights was written, are not covered by the Constitution’s freedom of expression. He’s talked about African-American welfare recipients, who he’s described as ‘rutting like rabbits.’ And he has said that Native Americans do not deserve to run America because he thinks they’re not Christian enough. He attacks a number of different groups, and in particular he goes after homosexuals in a relentless way and describes their sexuality as ‘rampant’ and ‘out of control’ and ‘may be posing threats in terms of pederasty.’ So he stirs a lot of fear.

— Jane Mayer on why the Southern Poverty Law Center has designated the American Family Association as a “hate group”

(Source: NPR)

He wants to shape the policy of the Republican Party because he hopes to change America. He’s evangelizing to make America more in line with his Biblical views. On his own, he probably defines such far out views that there’s a tendency to dismiss him. But what makes Bryan Fischer worth paying some attention to is that he’s part of a larger group — a bloc of voters, the evangelical white voters — who have become a very well-organized and very significant part of the Republican Party at this point.

— On today’s Fresh Air, Jane Mayer from The New Yorker details how a Christian radio host from Tupelo, Miss. is pushing far-right and anti-gay policy decisions on the Romney campaign and the Republican Party.

What the country is seeing is what looks like spontaneous combustion of far right-wing Tea Party politics, but behind that there are some very instrumental players who have great family fortunes, corporate fortunes — and who are coordinating to a certain extent.

— New Yorker writer Jane Mayer talks about conservative businessman Art Pope’s growing power, his connections to the Koch Brothers — and how his money may influence the 2012 presidential election.

2011 National Magazine Award Finalists on Fresh Air

Jane Mayer: The Brothers Koch: Rich, Political and Playing To Win

Atul Gawande: Make End Of Life More Humane

Robin Fields: Dialysis: An Experiment In Universal Health Care

full list of nominees here

The Billionaire Brothers Who Are Waging A War Against Obama by Jane Mayer (our guest tomorrow)

Journalist Jane Mayer covers politics and national security for The New Yorker. She writes in the August 30th edition about the billionaire brothers, David & Charles Koch who have quietly given away more than a hundred million dollars to right-wing causes. She says they’ve waged a war against President Obama, and helped fund the Tea Party Movement.