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| quote: | Originally posted by Q5echo
i'll be out of bounds when and if McCain opts out of public financing. then you'll have a point. |
Of course you will, because it's that much easier to merely handwave away his other handful of outright contradictions and troubles McCain has with his own "straight-talk" rhetoric, especially when it comes to campaign financing:
| quote: | "She used the jet on several trips last year that included campaign-related activity but never got campaign reimbursement, according to flight-tracking records and campaign-finance reports verified by the McCain campaign. At the New York fund-raiser, she spoke on stage, warming up the audience for her husband. If the campaign had paid for Mrs. McCain's trip to New York and three others that appear to have included some campaign work, it would likely have cost a total of about $15,000, the equivalent of first-class fare for the trips combined."
...."Jan Baran, a Republican campaign lawyer, said the campaign should have paid. 'I don't know why they want to fight it,' he said. 'The chutzpah is not that they're not paying for this trip, it's that they're using a corporate airplane at a highly discounted rate.'"
http://online.wsj.com/article_email...NzcxNDc4Wj.html |
That's a no-no, Q. John McCain, one who touts reform on all campaign financing laws, surely should have known this.
And he also was not given permission by the FEC to withdraw from public financing out of the primary, yet he did it anyway, which is also a big no-no:
| quote: | "The nation's top federal election official told Sen. John McCain yesterday that he cannot immediately withdraw from the presidential public financing system as he had requested, a decision that threatens to dramatically restrict his spending until the general election campaign begins in the fall… Mason notified McCain that the commission had not granted his Feb. 6 request to withdraw from the presidential public financing system.
Washington Post - 2/22/08 |
Not to mention some other questionable actions that deserve more scrutiny:
http://waronyou.com/2008/04/judicia...al-fundraising/
In fact, he was gaming the public financing system from the get-go:
| quote: | 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."
Here's the back story. As of December, McCain was still enrolled in the public financing system, but had yet to actually receive any public matching funds. The Federal Election Commission had certified that the campaign would be receiving $5.8 million in public funds. But they wouldn't get that money for a couple more months. In need of even more cash beyond the $3 million loan he'd already secured from a Maryland bank (he'd taken out a life insurance policy as collateral), the McCain campaign was stuck in a bind. They needed more money, but the bank needed collateral.
The promise of those public matching funds (to the tune of more than $5 million) was the only collateral the campaign could offer. But there was a problem with that. Using that promised money as collateral would have bound McCain to the public financing system, according to FEC rules. And the McCain camp wanted to avoid that, because the system limits campaigns to spending $54 million in the primary (through August). That would mean McCain would get seriously outspent by the Democratic nominee through the summer. (McCain has separately pledged to enroll in the system for the general election; that would give him $85 million in taxpayer funds for use after the party convention through Election Day but bar other contributions.)
So here's what the McCain campaign did. They struck a deal with the bank that simultaneously allowed his campaign to secure public funds if necessary, but did not compel his campaign to stay in the public system if fundraising went well (i.e. if he won the nomination). As McCain's lawyer told the Post, "We very carefully did not do that."
He was not promising to remain in the system -- he was promising to drop out of the system, and then opt back in if things went poorly. In that event, the $5.8 million would still be waiting for him. And he'd just hang around to collect it, even if he'd gotten drubbed in New Hampshire and the following states.
You can see the agreement here. The relevant paragraph is on page two. Sizing it up, Mark Schmitt writes at Tapped:
| quote: | What we know is that McCain found a way to use the public funds as an insurance policy: If he did poorly, he would use public funds to pay off his loans. If he did well, he would have the advantage of unlimited spending.
There's a reason no one's ever done anything like this. It makes a travesty of the choice inherent in voluntary public financing, between public funds and unlimited spending. |
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsme...ked_on_taxp.php |
So my point stands. McCain pointing the finger at Obama is the height of hypocrisy considering McCain himself seemingly can't play by the rules himself. Yet you and McCain cry "FOUL!" when Obama contradicts himself and opts out of a system that McCain obviously can't hold himself to in the first place?
Furthermore, let's not kid ourselves here. Who in their right mind would decide on a limited amount of spending when they can raise oodles of cash by merely sneezing like Obama can? I'd say tough shit to McCain on that one, but actually last I checked he was keeping pace well with Obama on fundraising.
So not only is McCain making an ass out of himself by being a hypocrite, the guy's fundraising potential is actually doing quite well, not to mention the shadowy 527s and RNC money that will pour in like a river regardless.
| quote: | | everyone knows, as well as you, that campaign financing during national primaries is f**ked up beyond belief. it's a system essentially with no rules and little accountability at this time. |
Again, I'll be the first one to gripe louder at Obama for going back on his word if you will tell McCain to actually follow the rules that he pretends to hold so dear in public financing in the first place.
| quote: | | it's the general election that matters the most and an oppurtunity that Obama couldn't resist. you can't say with any certainty McCain would do the same. he won't. |
To be certain, honestly this isn't one of the bigger issues for me to really get huffed up about. Somewhere behind Iraq, Iran, health care, FISA, the economy, housing crisis, torture national debt and deficit, education, health care, I guess campaign financing reform is somewhere towards the bottom for me. But that's just me.
| quote: | | and about the FISA law, are you any closer now in thinking that maybe it was the right thing to do? if somehow you're not. if for some reason, which i can't help but think anything but selfish and il-informed reasons, you still think what Congress did was the wrong thing to do, don't you think every defence you put up for the current Democrat leadership was a total waste of your time? |
Not at all. I suggest you look up Al Wynn. The candidate that I helped support with my finances just beat him, and she voted against the FISA legislation. That is what this is all about :
http://www.actblue.com/page/fisa
Am I upset as hell? Absolutely. But I am man enough to both accept the fact that I didn't look past the principle and see the politician inside the Democratic party a bit more. And that's why I will continue to do what I can to hold them accountable to these principles.
And no, my stance on FISA has not changed at all. In fact, this has only made my stance stronger, as I have parted ways with a party and have stood up for something I believe in. I've examined the evidence of what occurred many times over, and my conclusions are the same as to what this Administration along with the telecos have done. And apparently, it seems that a handful of Dems. may very well have deliberately looked the other way in the process and needed to CYA on it as well.
Think about that for a second - if that is what occurred, the fact that this whole ordeal may have been a big CYA moment for this Administration as well as some Dem leaders, how would that change my stance on it? The only thing that's different now is that the Dems. are wrong in supporting it as well.
| quote: | | the Democrat leadership you've been defending care nothing, will say anything to you to get power. read my sig if you think i'm playing. the Clintons should have been a huge red flag, do you honestly think Obama is any different? hell no. |
Rockefeller has been anything but a strong Democratic leader on anything. Hell, he created the damn bill along with Dick Cheney out of the Senate Intelligence Committee granting amnesty in the first place. And his stance on Iraq has been anything but a strong voice of dissent. I'm not surprised by your sig at all.
Is Obama different? Time will tell, but one thing is certain, that's hardly a convincing argument to vote for another Bush third term, which McCain clearly represents. But the Obama worship by some no doubt took a bit of a blow yesterday, and the realization that he does play political games just like every other politician has hit home a bit more to the Obamabots. I gotta quote Greenwald on this. His entire article today is worth reading in regards to Obama's statement, but this sums it up well for me:
| quote: | The excuse that we must sit by quietly and allow him to do these things with no opposition so that he can win is itself a corrupted and self-destructive mentality. That mindset has no end. Once he's elected, it will transform into: "It's vital that Obama keeps his majority in Congress so you have to keep quiet until after the 2010 midterms," after which it will be: "It's vital that Obama is re-elected so you have to keep quiet until after 2012," at which point the process will repeat itself from the first step. Quite plainly, those are excuses to justify mindless devotion, not genuine political strategies.
Having said all of that, the other extreme -- declaring that Obama is now Evil Incarnate, no better than John McCain, etc. etc. -- is no better. Obama is a politician running for political office, driven by all the standard, pedestrian impulses of most other people who seek and crave political power. It's nothing more or less than that, and it is just as imperative today as it was yesterday that the sickly right-wing faction be permanently removed from power and that there is never any such thing as the John McCain Administration (as one commenter ironically noted yesterday, at the very least, Obama is far more likely to appoint Supreme Court Justices who will rule that the bill Obama supports is patently unconstitutional).
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenw...bama/index.html |
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Whence September dusk grows crisper still,
with leaves all crimson conquered,
I yearn to shout,
and dance about,
and stick pickles in my honker...
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