Hoist by His Own Petard
Peg on Apr 25 2008 at 8:49 pm | Filed under: Domestic Politics, Election 2008, Law, Libertarianism, Media
John McCain was one politician I admired greatly. While I still believe that the man is a true hero, and while I still do applaud some of what he does, the veil has been lifted from my eyes for one major reason: McCain-Feingold.
Although I, like so many others, wish that we lived in some la-la land where candidates never had to solicit campaign funds from anyone, and that we could miraculously learn about the candidates’ beliefs, abilities, character, experience, etc. for free, such is not the case. We live in the real world, and in the real world, we need money to accomplish this.
McCain-Feingold restricts our speech and the ability of candidates to communicate with the public. I have always found it to be straight out unconstitutional; perhaps one day the Supreme Court will strike it down.
Until that happens, however, all of us will have to labor under its inequities and burdens. Right now, McCain is finding himself ensnared in a web of his own making.
The McCain camp is teaming up with the Republican National Committee to tap into big, big donations from big, big donors – hoping to close the big, big money gap with Democrats.
Their effort to do so will involve some creative abuse of the campaign finance restrictions Mr. McCain authored a few years back. Whatever. The Arizonan may not yet fully understand that money is speech. At least he has come around to the view that more of the stuff is better when it comes to winning the presidency.
Whether this will ease Mr. McCain’s financial woes is yet unclear, but it’s arguably his smartest move, given the hand he’s dealt himself. Just imagine what might have happened if Mr. McCain had fought instead for simple transparency – and trusted Americans to decide how much to give and to whom. Free speech, via money, can be a liberating thing.
Part of me feels like saying, “Serves you right!” to Senator McCain. But, as I believe he would be a better choice for president than Obama or Clinton, I’ll simply hope that he and others learn from this ironic lesson.
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What’s worse is that McCain is probably a true believer. He actually believes working with the Left or Democrats in campaign finance reform will produce something positive for the Republic. The result is often what comes when Bush gets the same kind of stubborness over a topic. It takes years, if not an entire term, for him to drop it and change.
And that’s probably only because none of Bush’s advisers had anything better to offer. So long as McCain takes advice from Democrats, who he has befriended, it is unlikely he will have get any better idea of what “reform’ really means.
Even if McCain wanted to do real good and was willing to abide by his own laws and restrictions, there is no good to be done when the laws are made so that people who can manipulate the system benefits more than the people who neither have the time or inclination to manipulate the system.
More complex laws eventually mean that most people are disenfranchised out of the debate.