Legal Commentary

McCain Scandalized By Obama Campaign's Financial Success

By TChris

Reacting to news that Barack Obama set a record by raising $150 million in donations in September, John McCain said:

I mean, Senator Obama raised $150 million in — I understand, during the month of September, completely breaking whatever idea we had after Watergate to keep the costs and spending on campaigns under control — first time, first time since the Watergate scandal.

And I can tell you this, that has unleashed now in presidential campaigns a new flood of spending that will then cause a scandal, and then we will fix it again.

Chris Wallace helpfully asked McCain whether Obama was "buying the election," a suggestion that McCain happily embraced. [more ...]

Well, I think you could make that argument, but we're not going to let him. We're not going to let that happen. ...

So what's going to happen? The dam is broken. We're now going to see huge amounts of money coming into political campaigns, and we know history tells us that always leads to scandal.

Large political contributions lead to scandal when they come from lobbyists and corporations in exchange for policies that favor the powerful over the powerless. Small donations flooding into a candidate's campaign signal not scandal but broad support, a widespread desire to help that candidate change the status quo.

John McCain can talk all he wants about Watergate (a Republican scandal) and the "broken" system of publicly financed elections (which, thanks to the Supreme Court and Republican resistance has never functioned as intended). His griping won't change the reality that ordinary people are giving money to Obama because they want him to be president. There's nothing scandalous about those decisions. When individuals (as opposed to corporations and their lobbyists) support the candidate they like, that's called democracy.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on October 19, 2008 (boomark / email).