ASTROTURFING CAMPAIGN FINANCE “REFORM” — Ryan Sager is declaring a victory, of sorts:

My argument relates to the hypocrisy of a movement for “open government” doing the best it can within the law to remain opaque. And my argument is about a docile press that doesn’t give a damn about anyone else’s free-speech rights so long as it enjoys a “media exemption.”

I’ll be perfectly clear: I’m deliberately turning the campaign-finance-reform lobby’s obsession with money on its head.

That’s the whole point: to show that it is just another lobby.

If Hasen is conceding that — which I think his response does in spades — then the anti-reform forces have already won this battle.

Quite a shift in the terms of the debate since Thursday, don’t you think?

It would be more of one, if the level of denial weren’t so strong.