McCain’s Hypocrisy On Public Financing

February 19, 2008

Guest Post by dnA

For the past week, John McCain has been attempting to hit Barack Obama for reneging on his “pledge” to pursue public financing should he win the nomination. Aside from the fact that no pledge was ever made, McCain’s own abuse of the public financing system negates any presumption of good faith on his part.

McCain isn’t just eager to use public financing as a way of neutralizing Obama’s potential fundraising advantage in a general election match-up, he was eager to use it to bail out his flagging campaign. Via Paul Kiel at TPM Muckraker:

As The Washington Post reported on Saturday, John McCain’s campaign struck a canny deal with a bank in December. If his campaign tanked, public funds would be there to bail him out. But if he emerged as the nominee, there’d be no need for public financing, since the contributions would come flowing.

It’s an arrangement that no one has ever tried before. And it appears that McCain, who has built his reputation on campaign finance reform, was gaming the system. Or as a campaign finance expert who preferred to remain anonymous told me, referring to the prominent role that lobbyists have as advisers to his campaign, “This places McCain’s grandstanding on public financing in a new light. True reformers believe public financing is a way to replace the lobbyists’ influence, not a slush fund that the lobbyists use to pay off campaign debts.”

Hardly the kind of behavior you’d expect from a self-avowed champion of the taxpayer’s dollars. McCain’s own financial irresponsibility led his campaign to bankruptcy, and in his moment of need, he expected a government bailout. As usual, Republicans think of welfare as “big government” except when they’re broke and need money.

McCain’s arrogance and selective memory were on display last night at a campaign even in Wisconsin.

Speaking to the Outagamie County GOP’s Lincoln Day Dinner, McCain condemned the Democratic Congress for leaving domestic surveillance legislation unfinished, while bashing Democratic positions on the war on terror.

He promised to follow Osama bin Laden “to the gates of Hell” if necessary to track him down and drew applause for his comments on border control and his boast that in 24 years as a lawmaker, he has never requested a single earmark.

“What do we want?” he asked, “A bridge to nowhere, or a tax credit for every child in America of $1,000?”

As usual, the Republicans’ allergy to “big government” begins and ends with economic regulation, while acquiescing entirely to invasions of privacy and violations of due process. McCain likes to brag about his record on earmarks, and yet he saw no hypocrisy in expecting taxpayers to foot the bill for his campaign to the tune of five million dollars should he fail to become the nominee.

But perhaps the most telling part of the anecdote is McCain’s proclamation with a Democrat in power, we would see more useless spending in the mold of Alaska’s $223 million “bridge to nowhere”.

That earmark was proposed by Senator Ted Stevens, a Republican.

The Democrats should hit McCain on the inconsistencies between his reputation for alleged fiscal discipline and his abuse of the public financing system as hard as they can.

The press corps is already characterizing those inconsistencies to be the result of agonizing evaluations of his positions, and thus overflowing of integrity. Pandering and sliminess are not mentioned.

  • I read David Brooks column today in the NYT and he repeats the Obama “pledge” as if it were a fact – which made me think that perhaps it was. I haven’t heard a lot of denial from Obama about this.

    I appreciate your observations of the hypocrisy of McCain!

  • So will any journalist do a real, ie. not puff piece, interview with McCain, calling him on these “inconsistencies?” Don’t hold your breath. But what if Democrats challenged him, either now or after our nominee is selected? The Democrat(s) will do a no-holds barred interview with the MSM — if McCain will do the same. If he declines, he’s chicken. If he agrees, odds are he’ll get tangled in all his flip-flops, lose that famous temper and show America the real John McCain.

  • I’m glad the honorable Senator from Arizona does’t smoke, otherwise I’d see him as one of those individuals who doesn’t use the anti-smoking patch to quit, but instead, he’d wear one to enhance the experience. I can very easily see a connection between the addictions of smoking and political fundraising, and I think McCain is gaming the system. -Kevo

  • #2. DailyKos had a lengthy piece yesterday on the whole Obama’s “pledge” thing. I’m on my iPod so I can’t give you the link but it’s entitled John McCain is Full of Crap by Adam B. Posted on 2/18 at 8:05 am PST. Check it out.

  • As usual, the first thing we should say when we answer the latest Republican lie is to reinforce the pre-existing meme which knocks their BS down. In this case we need to ask the listener if they really believe Republicans when it comes to influence peddling. The party of Jack Abramoff and Tom Delay and Dennis Hastert and (the list is too long to go through) is really going to lecture Democrats on campaign finance? Do we need to go over the specific cases where the Republican leadership sold us out for profit? Do we need to go over the ways that Barak Obama has helped to clean up the system?

    I guess we do.

    Every Democrat should be ready to rattle off half a dozen examples of Republican leadership corruption and roll those out every single time the question comes up. Then they need to be told (again and again) the ways that the Democrats have helped drain the fetid swamp the Republicans built and fought to keep in place.

    The people who are ignorant enough to be confused about which party is worse will need to hear it a hundred times before it’ll sink in.

  • Barack Obama believes that a presidential campaign should be funded by the people who support the candidate.

    John McCain believes that the American taxpayers should pay for his campaign, whether they like him or not.

    Today’s question is: “Who’s presidential campaign do you want to pay for—the guy who you support—or the guy you don’t?”

    Two words, people—” ’nuff said….”

  • Obama surrogates need to knock these down forcefully. If they don’t, they run the risk of pulling a Kerry.

  • The conundrum with the public financing issue comes down to Democrats being expected to live up to their word, even in this case where the fine print in Obama’s claim is never considered, while a Republican’s word is essentially an easily disposed of suggestion that no one, especially the media, takes a very close look at. It’s Mother Teresa vs. John D. Rockefeller. And of course the Rockefeller Republicans never fail to remind the voters to vote for money over virtue, even if it’s someone else making all the money.

  • The Republican battle cry: “I’m against Socialism! Except when it’s for the right people!”

    Only a party that could nominate Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, and think doing all this was a Good Thing, could latch onto another phony hypocrite like John McCain and think that in doing so they were Saving America.

    Republicans really are from the bottom half of the IQ pool.

  • I think I remember that the general election campaign for each candidate begins when the candidate accepts his/her party’s nomination. Since the Dem Convention is first, that would mean that Obama or Clinton (if they use public financing) would be obliged to begin spending ONLY their public financing earlier than the GOP nominee would have to do so. This would give McCain a real funding advantage, because he would still be spending privately raised money during the period between the Dem and Rep conventions. I believe that the Democratic nominee (either one) will vastly out-fundraise McCain and should most certainly decline being hamstringed by the public funding limitations. McCain understands this all too well; and his bluster about a so-called mano-a-mano pledge should be ignored.

  • hahahahaha. And someone really thinks this guy could beat Clinton. Hahahahahaha. No matter who we nominate no republican will win the WH this election. Everything they have tried has ended in disaster and here we have McBush babbling like a mindless goat proving that at this time the republicans have no integrity left. More wars, Iraq forever, no HC plan, more defense spending and permanent tax breaks for the wealthy. I think the GOP media allowed Guliani to run for so long without scrutiny just so McBush wouldn’t look like such a fool. Hand McBush a microphone and challenge any…any position he holds and watch him bury himself.

    The ultimate GOP goal is to get the majority of American wealth into the hands of about 500 families which the rest of us will serve. Our military-media-industrial-government complex is doing the bidding of these families and their minions and not the will of the people and time is running out on being able to stop them. Let’s pretend McBush is relevant and actually has a chance of being president to keep the “money party” distracted while we elect a democratic president, house and senate. Oh shit, we’re already doing that…never mind

  • Campaign reform hell …we need campaign finance revolution…get the profiteers out of elections. Public finance can only work if the MSM stations quit making a fortune from the advertising and the debates. It’s not only people who support the candidates views who contribute but also those who want their views supported and will pay enormously for that support…look at what the telcoms have done. Public finance and cooperation of the airways which belong to the people not the corporations is the only way to get special interest money out of politics. Elected officials shouldn’t have to worry about raising $10,000 a week just to get reelected. Whether we shorten the campaign season or make equal public airway’s time mandatory, public finance is the only way to get the money and profiteers out of our elections. It is not a question of if we should have PF of campaigns it’
    s a question of why would we have it any other way. It makes candidates equal without favoring the wealthy or those who can raise the most bribes..er..I mean donations.

  • Er, that would have been the Lincoln Savings & Loan & Taxpayers Bailout.
    Charles Keating sez pron bad, fraud good, bailout the best!

  • When CB first posted on this subject, a few of us via direct Obama quotes proved there was a pledge, even as evidenced by the link above.. and now yet again, there are claims of no pledge. I don’t get it.

  • OK, honestly, I had not intended to do any swan-diving, and this is not campaign financing related, but while refrshing my memory I ran across this from Wikipedia.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Keating

    “American Continental Corporation, the parent of Lincoln Savings, went bankrupt in 1989; more than 21,000 mostly elderly investors lost their life savings, in total about $285 million, largely because they held securities backed by the parent company rather than deposits in the federally insured institution, a distinction apparently lost on many if not most of them until it was too late. The federal government covered almost $3 billion of Lincoln’s losses when it seized the institution.”

    So Mr. Keating (Sen. McCain’s good friend) ruined thousands of people, cost the American people billions while enriching himself.

    This, my friends, is how the Republicans roll. So let’s all listen to their sanctimonious lectures and chastize the Democrats, right?

  • If you care about your country and your children’s future you should be willing to contribute your efforts and/or your money to the political process. The alternative is either welfare for political pros – under public financing – or ceding your future to the wealthy and powerful. Given that the SC has ties money to protected speech, public financing is the worst of both – welfare for the political class without strings plus the right of the rich and wealthy to tip the balance outside the regulated political system. Campaign finance reform does not work. Instead we need absolute transparency in real time.

    Barack did not pledge to join this game; instead he has followed Howard Dean in encouraging an outpouring of financial and personal engagement in the political process. The constraints imposed by public financing will only hobble his campaign and punish his supporters.

  • “Republicans really are from the bottom half of the IQ pool.”

    Yet Tommy Boy, they are smart enough to figure out a way to win! I am ready for you the “smart ignorants” like you to be “educated” once again in November.

  • This is what I emailed to Obama tonight

    Dear Senator Obama,

    I am writing to you to encourage you NOT to accept public financing for the general election. I understand why you leaned that way in the past, but as one of your hundreds of thousands of small contributors I know I would feel disenfranchised if we couldn’t keep doing our little bit to help you defeat the party of war and fear.

    I have never made a political contribution in 30+ years of voting, but now that I am doing it for your campaign I’m understanding that those dollars actually should be a part of protected “speech” under the constitution. That always seemed like BS when the dollars were overwhelmingly from an elite class of political donors, but now that you have pioneered a completely different donor class it is feeling rather egalitarian.

    Of course Mr. McCain would like to limit your spending because with his divided and discouraged base he won’t be able to raise nearly as much. To me, he is trying to wrest away from folks like me the first opportunity in my life to have a role in this process other than voting for the least-worst option.

    I greatly respect some things about Mr. McCain including his stand against torture, his willingness to be rational about immigration and his desire to see wealth be less important in elections. In the latter case he is now missing the point by trying to force you into accepting the limits of public financing. To do that would actually violate the basic principles of his own position – that personal or corporate wealth should not over-ride the influence of the general population. Well, in this case it is the general population that has found a voice through small contributions from a large base.

    My humble recommendation to you is to tell Mr. McCain that your supporters don’t want you to tie your hands that we don’t want you to shut down our newly found voice in the political realm. We embody the true dream of “campaign finance reform” – the closer alignment of “one man one vote” with “one dollar one vote”.

    Yes we can!

    Steven Savage
    Encinitas, CA

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