SuperPACs: The Colbert Effect

Super PACs have gotten a lot of attention recently. Not just because of the millions of dollars they are spending on TV ads in South Carolina alone, but because comedian Stephen Colbert is shedding some light on these things.

Super PACs were allowed starting in 2010 after a Supreme Court decision. These groups can raise unlimited sums of money from corporations, unions and other groups, as well as individuals. Super PACs are not allowed to coordinate directly with candidates or political parties since they are "independent".

However, a candidate may "talk to his associated super PAC via the media. And the super PAC can listen, like everybody else.”

This makes the system pretty laughable, and something Colbert and Jon Stewart poked fun at when Colbert transferred power of his Super PAC to Stewart.

“While the courts did plenty to create this mess . . . the FEC bears much responsibility for making a bad situation disastrous,” Meredith McGehee, policy director at Campaign Legal Center, said in a recent statement. “With super PACs running amok, the Republican presidential primary is exhibit A of a system out of control, and the FEC is complicit in this auctioning of the White House.”

Blois Olson, executive vice president of Tunheim Partners joins FOX 9 News to talk about how these Super PACs are affecting the political system, if they will be around for years to come or will there more-and-more challenges to stop them. And how his Colbert playing into all of this and his affect on the GOP race?