Reform For Thee ...

Matt ponders the irony of campaign-finance reform:

It's interesting that the result of not one but both major parties nominating presidential candidates known as process-oriented reformers has merely resulted in an usually large volume of campaign finance shenanigans -- from McCain illegally backing out of the system after having used public financing to secure a loan, to Obama wriggling out of a commitment to use public financing for the general election. I bet that two years ago, reformers would have told you that a McCain-Obama matchup would be great for their cause. In practice, it's turned out to be terrible.

And I think it's not a coincidence. McCain and Obama both feel they can take the hit on these issues in part because they're both branded as "reformers" and thus don't need to worry as much about being perceived as corrupt. Years ago, of course, McCain had a different reputation as a consequence of the Keating 5 business and became a reformer in part in order to change that reputation. But politicians who have the clean image can feel free to ditch process constraints whenever convenient.

This is no doubt part of what's going on, but of course the deeper reality is that the attempt to stringently regulate campaign spending is one of the more pointless and useless reformist causes in modern American politics - and one that matters so little to actual voters that even its purported champions can't be bothered to practice what they preach. It would be nice if the experience of actually running a competitive campaign for President persuaded McCain and Obama to repudiate their misguided positions on the issue. But that would mean losing the Broders of the world forever, so instead they'll just play the hypocrites.

Comments

Ross invoking Broder to mock the candidates. I thought I'd never see the day. The one point Ross misses however is that Obama is raking in his bucks through small dollar donors, unlike McCain. Also, McCain is presently, and on purpose, violating campaign finance law while Obama is not. Not that it makes any difference to Ross or most of the TradMed.

Posted by Joe Klein's conscience | June 24, 2008 11:21 AM

riiiight....

because barack obama's sole concern in the world is making sure he doesn't piss david broder off.

Posted by jb | June 24, 2008 11:54 AM

I think it's a little more complicated than that.

As McCain acknowledged in 2004, the Dean campaign's ability to raise money from a whole bunch of small donors eliminated his concern-- that money from big donors corrupts.

Plus, the McCain camp said that they couldn't help it if 527s ran negative ads against Obama. So the whole agreement he said he wanted to pursue was a non-starter.

Caps on individual donations, and the availability of public financing, doesn't seem to be too terrible a policy. I don't think it's pointless and useless.

Posted by Elvis Elvisberg | June 24, 2008 1:25 PM

What Elvis said, more or less.

The main purpose of McCain-Feingold was to end the practice of individual donors and corporations funneling vast sums of "soft money" to campaigns via the DNC and RNC. This reform was effective, and it deserves much of the credit for the fact that Obama acquired a huge fundraising advantage by tapping into small donors over the internet. I guess if your top priority is electing Republicans, then this is pointless and useless. But I think it's a very healthy thing for representative democracy for both parties to raise most of their money from the grassroots.

The provisions of McCain-Feingold relating to issue ads are a mess, and the pre-existing system of federal matching funds is now dead, for all intents and purposes. But I hardly think it's pointless and useless to seek transparency in political fundraising, or to strongly discourage the practice of buying access to political candidates with large donations.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | June 24, 2008 3:10 PM

Plus, the McCain camp said that they couldn't help it if 527s ran negative ads against Obama. So the whole agreement he said he wanted to pursue was a non-starter.

Couldn't help it? It would be illegal coordination under the campaign finance laws if they were able to stop it, part of the problem of the laws.

There does seem to be some exaggeration from the Obama campaign as to the percentage of their cash from small donors, or at the least confusion where it sounds like he's talking about percentage of cash but means percentage of people when he says "percentage of donations."

And of course small donors themselves aren't really poor in general (even in 2008, the data claims); the traditional Republican advantage among small donors was an advantage among the broad upper middle class that has enough to donate to campaigns.

As to whether Sen. Obama is breaking campaign finance law, the linked story seems to claim that they can't verify the number of small donors (under $200) because they don't have to be reported to the FEC. Hopefully they're at least keeping records, because otherwise someone could make multiple small donations to evade the FEC rules.

Posted by John Thacker | June 24, 2008 7:22 PM