Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain pledged to accept public financing of the 2008 presidential election if they win the nominations of their parties and their opponents agree to do the same, reports Bloomberg news service. Their announcements came after a ruling by the Federal Election Commission that candidates can solicit donations for a general campaign and still qualify for a public grant by returning the money later.
Bloomberg says their announcement "may shore up the three-decade-old public funding program, which was in danger of collapse as candidates opted out to avoid spending limits."
The story notes that Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton "led the way in rejecting the system by beginning to raise funds for the general campaign right away."
Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, a Washington-based group that is calling on all the presidential hopefuls to agree to do the same as Obama and McCain, says public financing "is now a real issue in the 2008 presidential campaign."
McCain and Obama both pledged that, if nominated by their party, they would pursue an agreement with nominee of the other party to preserve a publicly financed general election.
The 2008 Republican National Convention will take place in Saint Paul, Minnesota from September 1 until September 4, 2008. The 2008 Democratic National Convention will be held from August 25-28 in Denver.
Frankly, I think this is not a smart move for McCain or for any Republican candidate who wins the nomination. It opens the door to being swamped by massive spending by special interest groups favoring the opposition, and being unable to increase fundraising and spending to respond.
In its story, the Associated Press reminds readers that McCain has been "a longtime advocate of limiting the influence of money in political campaigns." That advocacy culminated in the McCain-Feingold law, of course, which not only limits the influence of money in political campaigns, it also forbids grassroots Americans from speaking out against political candidates by name during the last 60 days of a campaign.
It is anti-freedom, ant-First Amendment, and has McCain as its first name.
The good news: Sen. Mitch McConnell vows to continue fighting to undo McCain-Feingold.
McCain has quite a few Republican allies both past and present, who agree that private money has too much influence over our elections which should be about who has the best ideas and the most voter support, not who has the most money. They include President Teddy Roosevelt, Senator Barry Goldwater, Senator Warren Rudman, Senator Allan Simpson, Senator George Voinovich, and Connecticut Governor Jodi Rell (who incidently has the highest voter approval rating of any governor in the United States). I don't want Hillary or Barack or anyone else to win the presidency because of their fundraising prowess. Let's see them stand up in a fair fight against all comers armed only with their best ideas and see who wins then. I think that's what our founding fathers had in mind when they created this republic. Maybe the Democrats would shrink from that fight, but Republicans shouldn't.
Posted by: Craig Dunkerley | March 2, 2007 10:30 PM | Permalink to Comment