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Obama, McCain sacrifice reform credibility

An editorial  —  6/25/2008 9:25 pm

Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold is right when he says of Barack Obama's decision to opt out of the federal public financing system: "This is not a good decision. While the current public financing system for the presidential primaries is broken, the system for the general election is not. The entire system must be updated."

For real reformers, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee's decision is unsettling.

It's even more unsettling since the announcement came in the same week that Obama was sending conciliatory signals to Wall Street -- most explicitly in a Fortune magazine interview where Obama seemed to distance himself from tough primary-season talk about altering free trade policies that favor multinational corporations over the interests of workers, farmers and communities in the U.S. and abroad.

But, while Feingold's point is well taken, the gripes from his former partner in promoting reform, Arizona Sen. John McCain, cannot be taken so seriously.

The Republican presidential candidate and his supporters certainly sound righteous. "The true test of a candidate for president is whether he will stand on principle and keep his word to the American people," complained McCain communications director Jill Hazelbaker. "Barack Obama has failed that test today, and his reversal of his promise to participate in the public finance system undermines his call for a new type of politics."

This is true.

But it is also true that the current public financing system is broken, and while McCain was once a serious player in efforts to address the crisis, he has in recent years been more than willing to capitalize on its dysfunction.

Last year McCain applied for public funding of his campaign for the Republican nomination. At the point when he did so, his campaign was in crisis -- so broke that the candidate was flying coach (in the middle seat) and generally dismissed by party power brokers and special-interest donors as a bad "investment."

Then McCain won New Hampshire and the money began to flow his way. By the time he secured the GOP nod in February, the McCain campaign was no longer a hand-to-mouth operation. And the candidate moved to withdraw from the public financing system for the primaries so that he could collect and spend more money before officially being nominated at the Republican National Convention in September.

There was just one problem. McCain had financed his primary and caucus campaigning with a $4 million line of credit from Fidelity & Trust Bank, via a loan agreement that it was generally assumed had been obtained by an acceptance on the part of all the players that public funds would be used to repay the money if McCain did not prevail in the primaries. (Of course, banks are glad to take either public or private money, but the prospect that public money will ultimately be available to settle debts is an incentive for loaning money to candidates who trail in the polls.)

The Democratic National Committee has since February been demanding that the Federal Election Commission investigate the loan issue. But the FEC, which because of disputes over appointments lacks a quorum, has failed to act on the DNC complaint.

Officially, the McCain camp claims the DNC's charges are "meritless." In reality, they are hoping that the collapse of the FEC as a functional regulator of the process will continue until after the election.

Democrats are pressing the matter. The DNC will file a suit in federal court to force FEC action on the matter, and party Chair Howard Dean says, "John McCain poses as a reformer but when it comes to his own campaign, he thinks the rules apply to everyone but him. Taxpayer dollars helped him secure a private loan to keep his campaign afloat, he got free ballot access which saved his campaign money, and yet it's clear he doesn't think he needs to stick by the legally binding contract he signed. John McCain is breaking the law and doesn't seem to care."

So where does this leave us?

Despite his campaign's silly and cynical efforts to suggest otherwise, Obama's decision to give up on public financing costs him credibility as a reformer.

But McCain has even less credibility.

The former reformer who once lent his name to the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform measure is now busy exploiting loopholes, taking money from lobbyists and political action committees, dodging requirements and aggressively fundraising from the shadiest of sources -- just recently the Republican had to "postpone" a big-dollar event at the home of creepy Texas oil man Clayton Williams, who said years ago that women should accept rape on the theory that "if it's inevitable, just relax and enjoy it."

While McCain tries to "make political hay" of Obama's decision to opt out of the presidential public financing system, David Donnelly, director of the nonpartisan watchdog group Campaign Money, reminds us that "we shouldn't forget that McCain himself has already opted in, and then opted out, of the presidential system this election cycle. The only reason he's gone unchecked is the lack of a quorum at the dormant Federal Election Commission."

An editorial  —  6/25/2008 9:25 pm