Comic Colbert pokes serious fun at U.S. campaign finance system

AP

Comedian and Charleston native Stephen Colbert, left, sings to the crowd during the "Rock Me Like a Herman Cain South Cain-olina Primary Rally" at the College of Charleston in Charleston, S.C., on Friday.

CHARLESTON, S.C. >> The signs said, “I’m skipping class to see Stephen Colbert,” but the students were in the middle of a civics lesson.

There were two people in pig costumes decrying pork. There was a guy dressed as “Mr. America,” with red-white-and-blue hockey pads as a costume. There were “Yes We Cain” signs and a boisterous crowd. It had all the markings of a political rally.

But in Colbert’s hall of mirrors, all is perversity reflected over and over again. He was holding an apple pie rally to disparage American politics. He was saying, vote for Cain — the former GOP front-runner who dropped out but is still on the South Caro­lina ballot — to withhold your vote in protest. And he was touting corporate money in campaigns because he wants to show the campaign finance system is absurd.

He even said he wouldn’t be negative because so many campaigns are.

“I won’t be saying things like, the only difference between Mitt Romney and a statue of Mitt Romney is that the statue never changes its position,” he said. “And it would be wrong to say if you guess Ron Paul’s real name, he has to teach you how to spin straw into gold.”

All is deliciously opposite with Colbert. “I know I don’t need to pander to the most beautiful people in the world,” he told the cheering crowd.

In the same vein, he heaped praise on the 2010 U.S. Supreme Court decision known as the Citizens United case. It allows unfettered corporate money in political contests, as long as special committees do not coordinate with a political campaign.

So far this year, the so-called super PACs have spent more than $26 million and are deluging the South Carolina airwaves with negative ads. Colbert formed his own super PAC, Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow, which he has handed over to fellow Comedy Central television host Jon Stewart while he campaigns in South Caro­lina. The new name: The Definitely Not Coordinating With Stephen Colbert Super PAC.

Colbert explained that “five unelected justices … ruled corporations are people and people have the right to free speech and money is speech, therefore corporations have the constitutional right to spend unlimited money in political speech.”

He asked the crowd to say after him, “Corporations are people!” When they refused, the choir behind him obliged.

He said he must stand for corporations because, without legs, they cannot stand for themselves.

“I am the Martin Luther King of corporate civil rights — the Lockheed Martin Burger King,” he said.

And for those who disparaged his rally and called his super PAC a joke, “then they are saying our whole campaign finance system is a joke,” Colbert said.

Indeed.