You make a very persuasive case -- much more than I would make if I tried to argue the other side of this.<p>I'm left with the conclusion, however, that I'm free to associate with other people and pool money to run political ads. Whether or not I do that as a corporation shouldn't factor into it.<p>Let's assume five of us play poker every Tuesday night and we're all plumbers. A new candidate is running for office that wants to license plumbers, which we're against. So we pool our poker earnings and start running some radio spots calling his mother a fat alcoholic. So far pretty standard political fare.<p>But if we were a corporation of plumbers, suddenly the rules change.<p>Or another example. Let's say I'm General Motors and I don't like Candidate X. So I just tell MSNBC to run negative stories about him right up until election day. No harm no foul. But if I'm Ford? (which doesn't own a cable news network) I'm crap out of luck.<p>There's just too many self-contradictions here. The basic theory says that I'm fine pooling my money with others to speak out. Whether or not that is done with a corporation or not doesn't seem to come into it. Yes, corporations are single-minded. But so are PACs. So are all political organizations. In fact, the entire purpose of a political organization is to be single-minded about something or another.<p>So I like what you're saying, but it doesn't carry the argument with me at the end of the day.