One of the under-noticed stories is the way that corporate America has been pouring money in to back the Biden campaign in a way that doesn't even get tracked by Federal Election Commission filings.
Two examples leapt out at me in recent days.
First, I can barely open Twitter without seeing a "promoted tweet"—that is, a paid ad—from Goldman Sachs of former Clinton and Obama administration official, now Goldman executive Jake Siewert interviewing author, historian, and columnist Anne Applebaum about the evidence that "democracy is in danger" from the "radical far right." Does that get disclosed as a campaign expenditure for Biden? Nope. But it sure helps him.
Second, this Gap ad, which I saw watching the Patriots football game. There's no explict "vote for Joe Biden," but the message: "Stand United" meshes conveniently with Biden's "unity over division" campaign theme, as does the brief visual of wind turbines.
I'm fully in favor of corporate free political speech, though when the Supreme Court ruled in Citizens United that it was protected by the First Amendment, Democrats complained and even proposed amending the constitution to restrict such speech. As these examples show, there are all sorts of ways to participate subtly in election-season influencing that stop short of making a federally disclosed campaign contribution, so any lawmaker who wants to outlaw this sort of thing entirely really would run afoul of the First Amendment. Whether this is a good use of shareholder money is a separate question. I guess the Goldman and Gap management figure that shareholders either won't notice, will notice and will agree it's a prudent expenditure, or will notice and won't take the trouble to make a fuss about it.
