My liberal friends are in a major snit. The U. S. Supreme Court ruled that corporations and unions can endorse or oppose candidates and spend their money to do so. Liberals fear huge corporations will control campaigns and lead to irretrievable loss of political purity.

The news media is owned by huge corporations. They spend billions advocating their biases to elect their favored few. Can anyone deny the media’s love affair with President Barack Obama? President Obama outspent his opponent by hundreds of millions. He needn’t have spent so much of his own campaign cash. Katie Couric and the other corporate media elite spent billions more to beat McCain/Palin.

Locally, multimedia giant McClatchy, owns the Anchorage Daily News, having huge influence in Alaska politics and campaigns. McClatchy is a corporation that just made $50 million in the 2009 fourth quarter. Why can one corporation spend billions to influence elections while others cannot? The Justices removed that double standard.

Michael Moore created a searing documentary, Fahrenheit 911, for the 2004 election. Moore’s production company paid for the hatchet job on President George W. Bush. Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth”, was a campaign tool to elect candidates who back his view of global warming. The publisher of his “study guide” is a corporation. Free speech is guaranteed for media companies, producers and publishers. We should never restrict their right to free speech or a free press.

The Saturday Night Live show with impersonators of President George W. endorsing reluctant McCain and Sarah look alikes was hilarious. It was also a last minute political attack reminding voters that if you did not like President Bush (and with the recession, most didn’t), you should vote against McCain/Palin. The SNL satire was paid for by NBC, a subsidiary of GE Corporation.

Business and conservatives were silenced by the rationale that campaign contributions could buy candidates. In my decades of raising money for Republicans, I have not seen one vote changed by campaign contributions. Next week, I am sponsoring a campaign fundraiser, along with others, for Lt. Governor Craig Campbell. Craig is the straightest of the straight arrows in Alaska politics. If someone tried to buy Craig, I fear he’d be tempted to use his military training to provide a lesson in political ethics.

Conservatives and businesses contribute to Craig because his political philosophy limits government’s role. Will liberals pour money into his campaign to influence his decision-making? Not on a bet. Did environmentalists pour big money into Kevin Meyer’s campaign to be a state Senator? Conoco Phillips employs Kevin. Environmentalist charged that he was in the pocket of Big Oil. The voters, however, rightly saw him as a hard working, man of integrity and intellect. My experience is that political contributions follow philosophy, not the other way around.

Could Big Oil buy Mike Doogan’s vote? I don’t think Mike’s vote is for sale, even to the lady who lets him live with her. The truth is we support candidates for office when they reflect our values and our politics. Corporations are no different. BP could be criticized for being involved in Alaska campaigns, even though they have a legitimate interest to protect. BP pumps Alaskan oil. McClatchy pumps leftward tilting opinions. Both corporations have freedom of speech.

The First Amendment to the Bill of Rights of the U. S. Constitution says: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Free speech is not just reserved for liberals. Thank God and the Justices for protecting it.