“Mark Schmitt”:http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=02&year=2008&base_name=the_pete_rose_of_politics#104506 on another of those principles that John McCain only “‘bends or breaks out of desperation and with distaste'”:http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/17/opinion/17kristof.html?hp.
We now have the exact language of John McCain’s “second loan,” and it is a legal masterpiece, albeit an ethical travesty … rather than pledge his existing certification for matching funds as collateral for the loan, which would bind him to the system and thus the spending limits, McCain carefully pledged to seek to re-enter the system later, and to use a non-existent future certification as collateral. And while the system is “voluntary,” McCain essentially traded away for cash his right to choose whether to participate in the system, and even his right to drop out of the presidential race, allowing the bank to force McCain “to remain an active candidate” in order to reapply for and qualify for funds. He was betting the spread (10 points) on his own primary performance!
I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say this is a promise to perpetuate a fraud on the American taxpayers: if he no longer intended to seek the presidency, he made a legally-binding promise to pretend to remain in the race just long enough to collect public money to repay the loan. … Is this illegal? Who knows. … 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.
{ 21 comments }
P O'Neill 02.19.08 at 1:13 am
Among the things it shows is how much the Swift Boat shite from 2004 has affected the thinking about campaigns. McCain seems to have been preoccupied by the idea that he’d be short of money in August, when the primary season is still technically underway. August 2004 was when the Swift Boat ads went into heavy rotation against Kerry, knowing that he’d be short of cash to combat them. And the pundits, only checking in occasionally from Nantucket, were too lazy to sort it out. The rest is history. So no one wants to be caught out this time.
John Quiggin 02.19.08 at 4:04 am
The discussion over at TAPPED on whether this is “too hard” for traditional media to cover is interesting. If I were trying to sell the story to the NY Times, I’d start with
That seems to be accurate, and not too hard for the NY Times readership. But I still don’t expect to see it run any time soon.
SCM 02.19.08 at 4:36 am
John McCain is the kindest, bravest, ethicalest, straight-shooterist man in Washington.
nick s 02.19.08 at 5:04 am
“John McCain promised his lenders to repay them with taxpayer money, should his bid for the presidency fail.”
“John McCain mortgaged his campaign, with the promise of public finance money as collateral.”
If that lede is too ‘hard’ for US political journalism, then the country is screwed.
Quo Vadis 02.19.08 at 6:16 am
I think you’re making too much of this. It allows the voters an opportunity to consider candidates who don’t have a lot of early financial backing without hamstringing those candidates later on. If a candidate demonstrates their viability early on, the donations will start to come in.
It sounds like a net win for democracy. Is it better to abandon the field entirely to those who are either well-connected to the conventional money sources or are independently wealthy? I think not.
Ragout 02.19.08 at 7:03 am
Let’s see, we have a serious candidate for president who’s running against a rich guy who can self-finance his campaign with $10s of millions. We have a public campaign finance system that’s so stingy, and has such ridiculous state-by-state spending limits, that almost all of the major candidates opt out. The only major candidate that opts in (Edwards) is criticized by his own supporters for hobbling himself in the general election. And you think McCain deserves criticism for minor shenanigans that allow him to hedge his bets and opt-in to public funding at the last minute? It’s the public campaign funding system that deserves criticism here, not McCain.
Walt 02.19.08 at 7:21 am
Once you understand that by definition McCain doesn’t deserve criticism, it all becomes clear.
Great Zamfir 02.19.08 at 9:14 am
Even if you think the current rules are bad, and that the result of McCain’s actions doesn’t hurt democracy, don’t you think that presidential candidates should play by the book, and not bend rules as far he can manage? Especially if his image is composed of words as ‘honest’ and ‘straight shooter’.
~~~~ 02.19.08 at 12:57 pm
Trying to improve a little on John Quiggin:
Ragout 02.19.08 at 12:59 pm
don’t you think that presidential candidates should play by the book, and not bend rules as far he can manage?
That’s loser talk. Obviously the Republicans are going to bend and break the rules as much as they can. Besides numerous examples involving the Supreme Court’s selection of the President, torture, and wiretapping, there’s also Texas’s between-census redistricting, the plan to overturn the judicial filibuster, and on and on. In this environment, I support candidates who fight to win, not boy scouts concerned about possibly committing some technical violation.
And let me point out too that the charges of hypocrisy raised by zamfir and Quiggin are pretty lame too. Hypocrisy is the most minor of sins. McCain voted for torture last week! For all I know that makes him a hypocrite, but such charges really miss the point.
dsquared 02.19.08 at 1:02 pm
It’s the public campaign funding system that deserves criticism here, not McCain.
That would be the McCain/Feingold public campaign funding system?
Matt Weiner 02.19.08 at 1:08 pm
Obviously the Republicans are going to bend and break the rules as much as they can.
Sure, but they should be condemned when they do so. In this case, McCain was specifically forbidden from using potential matching funds as collateral for a loan and then opting out of the public funding system. He did so de facto but not de jure. And now he’s attacking Obama for alleged hypocrisy on taking public funds. Why not point out that he’s not clean on the issue?
Matt Weiner 02.19.08 at 1:13 pm
Should say de facto if not de jure; one of Schmitt’s points is that the law is fuzzy here. The Federal Elections Commission has been sabotaged by Republicans’ refusal to confirm any nominees if they can’t have the egregious vote-suppressor Hans von Spakovsky on the FEC. So there’s little prospect of resolving whether McCain’s scheme was illegal, or sanctioning him if it was.
In any case, if McCain is going to run as a straight-talking campaign finance reformer, it’s worth pointing out that he used a scheme as convoluted and shady as a subprime mortgage to subvert the campaign finance system.
Ragout 02.19.08 at 1:27 pm
Trying to improve a little on ~~~~
Hmm, maybe that last sentence could be cut.
Ragout 02.19.08 at 1:30 pm
That would be the McCain/Feingold public campaign funding system?
No, McCain-Feingold is about contribution limits, not public campaign financing. So McCain’s not a hypocrite! We can all breath easy now!
Steve LaBonne 02.19.08 at 1:33 pm
How can McCain possibly be a hypocrite? Why, our Very Serious Political Reporters have anointed him as the very incarnation of Straight Talk! When he goes back on his word it’s only out of dire necessity! And this only happens… well… all the time…
I just can’t wait for the general election campaign, when the Very Serious Media will turn on their current darling, Obama, with a vengeance, while continuing to give Saint McCain a free pass. Ugh.
Barry 02.19.08 at 2:06 pm
“That seems to be accurate, and not too hard for the NY Times readership. But I still don’t expect to see it run any time soon.”
Posted by John Quiggin
Or course, the ‘too hard’ doesn’t refer to the readership, nor to the reporters, and probably not even to the editors of the NYT. My guess is that the senior editors, publishers and owners find such things ‘too hard’.
Thomas 02.19.08 at 2:24 pm
McCain’s name isn’t synonymous with “limits on campaign spending.”
I don’t think the “McCain’s lawyers are better than the other candidates'” is a particularly damning criticism. But, then again, I am a lawyer, and a good one, so it’s in my interest to say that sort of thing.
Uncle Kvetch 02.19.08 at 6:05 pm
The Kristof piece is a thing of beauty: A breathless encomium to McCain’s courage and stalwartness–he’s led the fight against torture, for God’s sake!!–followed by an acknowledgment that McCain voted for torture just last week, but hey, what are you going to do, he’s still a politician after all.
And this from The Newspaper of Record. Maybe a McCain presidency is the best this country deserves.
Scott Hughes 02.19.08 at 9:21 pm
This post reminds me how much people ignore the role that money plays in elections and how much it motivates the political decisions of candidates. We too often take things at face-value, when that is not usually the case even when about when a candidate decides to drop out.
lemuel pitkin 02.19.08 at 9:37 pm
I agree with Quo Vadis and Ragout, this criticism seems overblown.
One of the main effects of a campaign finance system is to encourage people to enter (or remain in) a campaign who otherwise wouldn’t. Indeed, if campaign finance doesn’t have this effect, it’s a failure.
Suppose someone is considering getting into a race and, to raise early money, offers lenders a claim on later public financing. Such an arrangement seems essentially identical to what McCain did here, and might well be necessary for a candidate without deep pockets to take part in a comeptitive campaign.
What Schmitt (who I generally like) calls “a promise to perpetuate a fraud on the American taxpayers” sounds to me like “a promise to stay in the race when he might otherwise drop out”, which, given McCain’s movement from dead-in-the-water to presumptive nominee, seems like exactly the sort of outcome the public financing system ought to produce.
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