What about my point? Some states allow candidates who have agreed to public financing to have free ballot access. McCain took advantage of that provision and saved himself several million dollars that he would otherwise have spent gathering signatures and filing paperwork.
The current McCain position seems to be that its perfectly fine to game the system this way. Announce you’re going to opt in – take all the benefits you can short of accepting actual cash – then opt out again.
Now I suppose you could dismiss this by saying “Well, all politicians try to exploit the system to get elected.” (I actually disagree, but that’s an argument for another day.) The thing is, John McCain has spent much of his career painting himself as a crusader against exactly this sort of political gamesmanship. It’s not called the “McCain-Feingold Act” for nothing.
If the man has no principles when it comes down to one of his signature issues, what does he believe in?
If this doesn’t violate the law, then I have no problem with it. As to the McCain-Feingold Act that primarily dealt with soft money and advertising, getting on the ballot on the taxpayer’s dime wasn’t really at issue in that particular piece of legislation.
I think McCain had a genuine intention to accept public financing when he opted in, the system allows an opt-out if you haven’t accepted cash. Maybe it should be further restricted, but McCain is under no obligation to self-restrict himself in a way that would be disastrous to his campaign. No one has an obligation to shoot themselves in the foot.
Ouch, missed that. For what its worth, I can’t imagine that the FEC would actually jail an active presidential candidate, and the “maybe he did, maybe he didn’t” issues with using the loan as collateral certainly gives them enough wiggle room to justify not slapping him with a harsh penalty even if they do reach quorum and find that he broke the rules.
Still, the headlines of being investigated for an offense which involves jail time while the election is going on is going to hurt, even if it doesn’t come to anything.
It allows you to opt out after the FEC agrees you can. As the FEC hasn’t done that, it does sound like it’s illegal for McCain to overshoot the cap, regardless of whether he technically used the cash as collateral or not.
Hey, did you hear that, fellow, Dems? Martin Hyde himself just came out and said we have no legal obligation to blow the election!
I can’t believe we never thought of that before. What a great loophole! Thanks, Martin Hyde!
Let’s go get 'em!
No legal obligation, but considering Gore and Kerry, you do have some recent precedent to uphold.
Gore had only to win his home state and he won the election with ease.
Kerry on the other hand, well–by that time he was running against the least popular President in SDMB history! Now that’s tough to lose against.
I’ve never said otherwise. But I’m not entirely convinced one way or another on the issue of how the FEC is supposed to perform its duties when it is understaffed and is prohibited from making rulings while it is understaffed.
Considering any Bush appointee to the commission will probably approve McCain’s request, I would not be surprised if the Democrats attempt to undermine the political process by refusing to accept any nominees at all in the hope it will torpedo McCain’s campaign. (As I said before, politics is a contact sport.)
Bush has had two jokers up since late 2005: (See post#2)
The senate isn’t buying them.
Bush has to come up with acceptable nominees if he wants to help McCain out of this jam. I don’t think the president is capable of that.
Which is why McCain is rather screwed. He can’t legally withdraw without a ruling from the FEC, and he can’t get such a ruling unless the FEC gets two more members. As I said before, I think he’ll end up deciding he has to blow through the caps and hope for his lawyers and the reluctance of the FEC to overly penalize a active Presidential Candidate to save him. I think I’d probably do the same thing in his position, but I don’t think its legal.
Maybe. As mentioned up thread, the current nomination fight precedes McCain’s current troubles, so it isn’t like the Senate is currently blocking nominees just to hurt McCain. If Bush decided to withdraw their nominees, and put forward ones that would be more acceptable to Dems…then I’m not sure what would happen. Certainly I could see the Dems continuing to block just to screw over McCain, or I could see them letting them pass in hopes they’ll find against him. Or they might let them pass just to keep the FEC from being totally toothless during the election even if they might release McCain from his public finance agreement.
As an interesting aside, I went to look up the FEC on wiki, and McCain apparently introduced a bill (again, before his current difficulties) thats still pending to replace the FEC with a leaner oversight body. Makes one wonder what happens if that bill passes while this case is still disputed. Weird
Looks like Bush has given McCain an out:
Oh, fuck it! Just fuck it! If that’s the worse they got, lets just settle. The game isn’t worth the candle, any way this goes, they’ll always have the option of tying it up in a committee or a court room long enough to get away with it.
Forget it, Jake, its Chinatown.
Let him have the money, and whup 'em anyway. They’ve always had the money advantage, pretty much.
I brought of the topic on February 22, and just like the MSM, nobody paid any attention.
Trevor Potter, McCain’s lawyer at the time made contradictory statements about what they had done and whether and why they thought it was illegal.
I also agree with what Airblairxxx said, that there should be more made of this. Not just for political haymaking but because this involves one of the main proponents of campaign reform.
You owe me a new Diet Coke, and a new keyboard, ya bastidge.
If I bow do you promise to not look down my shirt and admire my magnificent man-pecs?
-Joe
How about this: they let the issue run through the courts til the day of the election, then Bush pardons him.
This talk of prison is extremely premature. Probably the dirtiest race in recent memory in financial terms was the 1996 one. Bob Dole’s campaign broke the law regularly, the Clinton campaign broke it probably worse - this was the era of Chinagate. In the end both campaigns were fined by the FEC and the election results stood.
I realize we have had “reforms” since then, but do you think the FEC wants to be in a position where they are seen as determining a winner? After the criticism of the 2000 Supreme Court decision?
The most that will come of this is a fine of the campaign committee. Mark my words.