McCain Flip-Flops on Public Financing »
Posted By Aidenag 3 months, 1 week ago in NewsMedia pundits, spurred on by the McCain campaign, went apoplectic last week over Barack Obama's decision not to seek public funding for the general election. Yet McCain's own flip-flop on public financing in the GOP primary has been largely buried or ignored in media coverage, even though it is far more serious--including potentially legally.
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Aidenag
Photographer by day, news junkie by night. My main areas of interest are politics and the environment. If you have any questions, problems, or suggestions ...
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Comments So Far: 36
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KicBoxStallion3 months, 1 week ago
but this time around, Obama has run such a brilliant and an unprecedented campaign, running circles round the feeble out-dated Hillery and half-dead mcLame, Obama is COMMANDING the reluctant ("biased") media attention, the record crowds, AND THE CASH !!!
mcLAME is the limp flop !!!
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Beau78903 months, 1 week ago
Good story, Aidenag.
According to the article, in this case (as opposed to in Obama's decision not to opt for public financing of his campaign):
"On two occasions, in November 2007 and December 2007, the McCain campaign received favorable loans from a Bethesda bank, totaling $4 million, by promising to use federal matching funds as collateral."
If it's not a violation of campaign financing law (the McCAIN-Feingold law), it's clearly fraud perpetrated by McCain on the bank.
Why doesn't mainstream media talk about it?
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miklkit3 months, 1 week ago
Election fraud is old news. The republicons have been doing it for years.
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ybdogsct3 months, 1 week ago
Indeed, it's laughable that McCain would accuse Obama of flip flopping when McCain has flip flopped on his own pledge to root out the influence of lobbyists, multinational corporations, and special interests in other ways.
The fact is that public funding was conceptualized as one way to prevent special interests from influencing politicians.
However, this is not necessarily the only way to accomplish this. Obama can accomplish the same thing by simply refusing to accept PAC and lobbyist-bundled money, which he has already done during the primaries. Now, he is asking the DNC to follow suit.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0608/10871...
"Beginning today, the DNC will no longer accept checks from federal lobbyists or political action committees."
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ybdogsct3 months, 1 week ago
Meanwhile, even if McCain decides to accept public funding,
1) McCain still has lobbyists running his campaign
2) McCain accepts money from lobbyists
3) McCain's campaign will be infused with funds from the RNC, which accepts money from PACs and lobbyists and is not held to the same strict donation limits that regulate personal donations made directly to candidates' campaigns.
This is just one of the many ways McCain intends to skirt the campaign finance laws he himself helped pass.
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ybdogsct3 months, 1 week ago
The problem with public funding is that the laws McCain helped pass are not strong enough to prevent special interests from influencing campaigns. In fact, since the money Obama and McCain choose to forgo, by limiting themselves to public funding, will have to be raised a different way, special interests may end up having an even MORE profound influence on political campaigns by donating to the national parties and committees (which are regulated by looser limits) rather than donating to the campaigns themselves (which have stricter limits).
For example, McCain will make up that money with donations from the RNC which accepts donations from PACs and lobbyists with looser FEC donation limits. McCain also plans a series of maneuvers to help him circumvent his own campaign finance reform laws, as the following articles demonstrate:
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ybdogsct3 months, 1 week ago
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/04/19/new-mc...
"John McCain's campaign has devised a new system to increase the maximum amount an individual can donate to the unofficial Republican nominee's election efforts. The idea is to tap donors for more than the $2,300 limit set by campaign finance laws. Under legislation pushed by McCain in his role as a senator from Arizona, an individual can donate a maximum of $2,300 to a presidential primary campaign and the same amount to the general election campaign.
Campaign manager Rick Davis released the details of the 'McCain Victory 08' fund on Friday. He said the entity is a joint committee, combining the McCain campaign, the Republican National Committee and four key states under a 'hybrid legal structure.' The new structure allows up to $70,000 in individual contributions by channeling the money into different McCain-centric funds."
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lfergie8123 months, 1 week ago
"channeling the money into different McCain-centric funds."
Is this the Arthur Andersen accounting firm of Enron notoriety working for McCain now? Sounds like they're cooking the books to hide big individual contributions by making it look like something else.
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ybdogsct3 months, 1 week ago
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ar...
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In his early efforts to secure the support of the Republican establishment, McCain has embraced some of the same political-money figures he pilloried during a 15-year crusade to reduce the influence of big donors, fundraisers and lobbyists. The contrast between McCain the presidential candidate and McCain the reformer can be jarring.
McCain the candidate now expects Republicans to use the same big-money 527 groups in the 2008 elections to beat Democrats. McCain the candidate has enlisted some of the same GOP fundraising giants who created and flourished in the soft-money system, including Bush's fundraising 'Pioneers' and 'Rangers,' who earned their designations by raising at least $100,000 or $200,000 for his campaigns. McCain's finance co-chairs have given at least $13.5 million in soft money and 527 donations since the 1998 election."
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ybdogsct3 months, 1 week ago
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/21/mccain...
"The RNC Skirts Intention of Public Financing:
McCain's new fund structure will allow the McCain camp to collect significantly more money than the individual limits placed by the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill."
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/may/28...
"Sen. John McCain, who championed a law imposing strict new political contribution limits, is appearing at fundraisers nationwide where donors can give up to $70,100 each to help him win the presidency through a group set up jointly by his campaign and the Republican Party. This tactic exposes how easy it is to raise money from donors even if they already have given the maximum amount of $2300 to the presidential campaigns allowed under a law that Mr. McCain helped enact."
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ybdogsct3 months, 1 week ago
The ultimate point these articles make is this: By rejecting money from PACs and federally-registered lobbyists and by forcing the DNC to do the same, Barack Obama is abiding by the spirit and intention of the public financing laws that seeks to minimize the effects of corporate PACs, lobbyists, and special interests. That is because even though Obama will formally eschew public funding, Obama's campaign was largely funded by personal, small-dollar contributions from voters rather than from corporate PACs, lobbyists, and interest groups.
Obama's campaign is, in spirit, publicly funded BY THE PUBLIC, not by the government.
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/feb/14/nation/...
"Obama raised $27.2 million in donations of $200 or less in 2007."
Meanwhile, although McCain can claim that he accepts public funding, his campaign is actually being funded by lobbysits and corporate interests, since McCain accepts cash from the RNC, which accepts money from PACs and lobbyists.
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JohnQPublicComment removed: User banned.
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dunkirk3 months, 1 week ago
The myth of hte liberal media as espoused by the talking heads is truly astounding. What is even more astounding is the lack of any sophistication whatsoever in the double talk express. If this had been Obama we would have had congressional investigations and a call for him to be tried. The Republicans are by far teh embodiment of organized crime elevated to a polliticval party.
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woodguru3 months, 1 week ago
Wolfie's the quintessential republican faith voter, he buys the bull such as "we must drill to lower the price of gas" "war on terror", "45 new reactors", etc. You put easily verified fact in his face and it's all lies. He must think McCain actually was at the top of his class, wasn't really married to his first wife so he didn't cheat on her, didn't crash five planes, and was a war hero even though he squealed "my daddy's an admiral" to get preferential treatment.
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gbilly08Comment removed: User banned.
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Dave593 months, 1 week ago
The fact is McCain took out loans and used federal matching funds a a garuantor if he lost certain primary races. He also decided after winning those races to disqualify himself from the public funding. This should have required the Federal Eelection Commission to rule on the decision. They were not able to as they do not have a quorm due to lack of commission members. So he gets a pass.
This isn't flip -flop. This appears to be an illeagal move with no over-sight.
To call Barak Obama a flip-flop on this is so far from the truth in just smells of the typical Repub smear.
Oh and to Wolfie, the Nation is not the only place this information is available. See this article http://desertbeacon.blogspot.com/2008/06/mccain...
It has discussion on the subject as well.
It's really funny how desperate the right is getting now that the strangle hold on this country is coming to an end.
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Beau78903 months, 1 week ago
The Federal Election Commission is back in business!
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/06/24/polit...
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lfergie8123 months, 1 week ago
"It's really funny how desperate the right is getting now that the strangle hold on this country is coming to an end."
You want to know how desperate they really are? They are circulating an e-mail declaring Obama ineligible for candidacy to the presidency because he isn't a natural born citizen.
I got the email but I'll post a link to it and the source of the claim. Here's Snopes.com's explanation of the charge.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/citizen.asp
And here's the source.
http://word.truthintheword.org/archives/1430
I had a good laugh with this one.
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woodguru3 months, 1 week ago
Did anyone catch that the chairman of the FEC, David Mason, who had told McCain he couldn't just opt out, was basically fired from the job? Here we had a republican saying McCain wasn't going to reverse his pledge which actually goes far deeper than the surface that is being looked at. Mccain's first pledge to take public funds was made when he first signed an agreement to do so at the time he entered into the republican race.
This Bush crapola has to stop, the last six months is turning into a leaking cesspool that has crap spilling out all over the place.
It is my hope that we can enter into an era where the liberties Bush has made commonplace can never happen again. His terms can be used historically to show abuses that have happened and how we keep them from ever happening again.
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kedirian3 months, 1 week ago
Well, hell, Dubya I is consistent to the very end in the face of logic and the facts - and Dubya II is flip-flopping all over the place...
I wonder, is either characteristic a sign of dementia?
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woodguru3 months, 1 week ago
This is incredible. It wouldn't be nearly as bad if he just did his thing and left the subject alone.
As was said earlier, if obama had used future public funding as collateral and done what mcCain has there would be enough formal charges being initiated to effectively rule out his even running. Democrats need to look at what republicans would have done and do it to McCain. There isn't any point in giving him chances or trying to run a clean campaign, republicans don't understand the concept and dems need to learn to play hardball.
It's taking too big a chance of McCain actually getting in to even think about cutting slack on this. We have seen the last campaigns come down to eleventh hour smears that the american people are too dumb to ignore.
We need to simply eliminate this dog while the chance is there, illegal is illegal.
Thanks to the people who have detailed facts surrounding what the specifics are in terms of the funding laws and rules, it's been informative.
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bigurn3 months, 1 week ago
I don't believe the press is doing a good enough job holding either candidate responsible for campaign financing. Obama's pledge was one of the central tenets of his candidacy, and breaking it shows him to be a normal politician.
McCain's problem seems to be of a more technical nature, and it will be resolved fairly quickly.
In both cases we have standard politicians using standard tactics to try to win an election.
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woodguru3 months, 1 week ago
It's too bad we can't see 60 minutes or 20/20 doing a segment on the most blatant cases of slanted press, it would be an eye opener for many who would believe it if they saw it on TV.
I don't see Obama switching on how he wanted to fund his campaign as any more than a last minute strategy decision based on what he was going to be up against with McCain and how he gets his funding. Obama apparently has the intent to hold himself to a cleaner standard than McCain will and he would be at a disadvantage. I can't see holding a good decision up as going back on his word when it makes sense.
Besides I thought he had said he would take public funding if McCain did and McCain isn't. A person with integrity is in real trouble against one who has no scruples, I think Obama needs to ramp up the hard ball game a bit. I'm cringing thinking that the republicans have something up their sleeve
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