Scandal!
John McCain on Barack Obama’s fundraising success: “I’m saying that history shows us where unlimited amounts of money are in political campaigns, it leads to scandal.”
I’m a supporter of full public financing of political campaigns. I can only hope that John McCain’s experience of getting pummeled at fundraising will lead him to join that cause. For years, though, McCain’s been opposed to that kind of far-reaching reform, thinking that the only good kind of campaign finance reform is the kind that’s predicted to give the Republican Party an edge.
Meanwhile, I’m a little bit confused about the prospects for corruption here. In September, Barack Obama raised about $150,000,000. His average donor gave him $86 or 0.0000573 percent of the total. The maximum contribution anyone could have given him was $2,300 which comes out to 0.00092 percent of the total September haul. Someone responsible for 0.00092 percent of Obama’s total warchest doesn’t have any meaningful levers of influence over Obama. The nature of a huge haul from a giant pool of donors is that there’s no real prospect for corruption.
I think you could fairly say that issues of corruption aside, the Obama Method is still troubling insofar as it involves a systematic class bias in favor of politicians who appeal to the kind of people likely to make campaign contributions — i.e., relatively prosperous people. Of course this problem also applies to the way McCain is financing his campaign. The only solution would be full public financing of campaigns. Which would be a good idea. But it’s an idea McCain has long opposed.
63 Responses to “Scandal!”
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October 19th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
I suspect McCain’s comment was more designed to get press than make sense. That, and deflect from the craptastic campaign McCain is running.
October 19th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
I don’t agree with McCain, but I suspect he was talking more along the lines of “foreign interests” or something helping Obama get elected by making a lot of $150 donations that they only have to click a checkbox to make. I’ve never given more than $50 at a shot, and all of it online, and I don’t know how any of the campaigns can know for sure that I’m a US citizen.
October 19th, 2008 at 4:28 pm
I think saying that “The maximum contribution anyone could have given him was $2,300″ is a bit disingenuous considering the very well known practice of “bundling” to get around the limit.
Not as disingenuous as what McCain is saying about him, but still– I expect better of you, Ygelsias, than to bring out a transparently incorrect support for your argument. That’s what Republicans do.
October 19th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
I’m not terribly surprised that advocates of public financing of taken this campaign as proof that we need some sort of full public financing system. Not that I disagree with the need for major public reforms, but I think that sort of misses the point as it relates tothe problems with our current system.
$84 million (the amount a candidate gets under public financing this year) is a lot of money. It’s certainly a lot of money over a 2 month period. And indeed, it’s probably pretty close to the maximum amount you can spend effectively in that span of time. You certainly can’t spend $150 million efficiently in 2 months, and you’re basically seeing that in the amount of wasteful media time Obama is buying up, largely to impress the campaign media and make a story out of that. It’s a smart media strategy to be sure, but it’s not like you can move voters in a direct proportionto how often your commercials run. Their is a point of diminishing returns, which means a point of, effectively, no returns.
Rather, the problem with the public financing system we have at present is the spending caps that come along with it, on a state by state basis. This is the problem Kerry ran into in 2004, where a few extra resources in the final week in Ohio might have made a substantial difference there, but they were limited by law on how much money they could spend in Ohio. And that’s the scenario the Obama campaign was looking to avoid.
If we really want Presidential candidates to take public financing seriously, the caps are going to have to go.
October 19th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
You certainly can’t spend $150 million efficiently in 2 months, and you’re basically seeing that in the amount of wasteful media time Obama is buying up, largely to impress the campaign media and make a story out of that.
Brien, are you kidding? Do you have any idea how the campaign is spending that money, and what proportion is going into the GOTV effort? If you really think it’s all going to be “wasted” on ads, you’ve completely missed the point.
October 19th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
“thinking that the only good kind of campaign finance reform is the kind that’s predicted to give the Republican Party an edge.”
Good thing for us, he was wrong the last time. Hopefully, he’ll be wrong again. Look, I like the idea of public financing, but it somehow seems like a less relevant issue now. It’s good to be the king.
October 19th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
the issue is that the 527s have unlimited funding. If you kill off the 527s and force an even playing field then you might have something, but McCain left the 527s alive in the last reform laws.
October 19th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
I predict that this line of attack by McCain will go over like a lead balloon with most Americans – at least those who aren’t already firmly in McCain’s camp.
Campaign finance is one of those issues that political reporters and pundits care about a great deal, but most Americans really don’t give a rat’s ass.
October 19th, 2008 at 4:58 pm
The only solution would be full public financing of campaigns. Which would be a good idea.
How would such an animal be constitutional? Full public financing of campaigns would mean no private sources of funding, right? I know the Supreme Court has said it’s permissible to limit private contributions, but would it be permissible to limit them all the way down to zero? I doubt it. So, unless the government is prepared to get awfully generous with respect to campaign finance, progressive politicians like Senator Obama will foolishly be ceding a fundraising advantage by participating in such schemes. I say fuck the conservative idiots who abandoned their own principals to support statist regulations on free speech.
Matt, here’s a suggestion: dump your profoundly illiberal opinions with respect to the first amendment by joining me in calling for jettisoning incumbent-friendly contribution caps (in favor of strict and vigorously enforced disclosure regulations). And then dump your profoundly illiberal opinions regarding the second amendment by joining me in calling for tough, effective, European-style common sense gun regulations (and no, that doesn’t mean prohibition). In other words, if you’re going to be a right winger on any Bill of Rights-related issues, be a right-winger on free speech (because you can be a liberal at the same time). Plus, you’ll be saving lives.
October 19th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
If you really think it’s all going to be “wasted” on ads, you’ve completely missed the point.
Right. I think what he means to say (or ought to be saying) is that diminishing returns must set in. But that’s not the same thing as “wasting” all that money. My own guess (hope?) is that Obama’s money advantage will nudge up his vote, but really boost the vote for Democrats down-ticket.
October 19th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
What about the issue of big donors who hide their contributions by giving incrementally? I think the bigger point was that Obama may have raised $150M by getting money from “small donors”, but that could be an illusion. What safeguards are there in place to make sure I don’t give 46 contributions of $50 each instead of $2,300?
October 19th, 2008 at 5:02 pm
Who does he think he’s kidding? McCain tried to get around his commitment to accept public financing.
October 19th, 2008 at 5:02 pm
What safeguards are there in place to make sure I don’t give 46 contributions of $50 each instead of $2,300?
Why would there need to be any such safeguards given the fact that either sum equals the same amount of money?
October 19th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
BHO has received questionable donations totaling millions of dollars.
And, it wouldn’t be that difficult for criminals or foreign interests to funnel large amounts of nearly undetectable cash to the BHO campaign. I’ve contacted the FEC about that but they didn’t reply. Hopefully someone will look into that or even better file a lawsuit.
And, MattY’s inexperience shows once again: it’s not difficult for, say, foreign backers to let the BHO campaign know that they’re the source of that funnelled cash.
October 19th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
Re Josh G’s comment “Campaign finance is one of those issues that political reporters and pundits care about a great deal, but most Americans really don’t give a rat’s ass.”
———–
That’s because Americans are the dumbest, most stupid motherfuckers on the planet.
That’s why George Bush can steal $2 TRILLION out of their Social Security Accounts, give it to the 3 percent richest part of the population to invest in China, and the morons are too stupid to realize it.
That’s Why George Bush and a Democratic Congress can recently hand $1.5 Trillion to the richest cocksuckers on the planet — and the 95 poorest percent of the population lets it roll over them like a cool summer breeze.
That why George Bush and Hillary Clinton can send 4500+ of our sons to their deaths for the sake of Big Oil and Haim Saban — and 70 percent of the population doesn’t have a fucking clue.
Next time we Pledge Allegiance at a Football Game, why don’t we pledge allegiance to a herd of selfish pigs rooting around in a trough? Because that’s what America is now.
October 19th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
And, it wouldn’t be that difficult for criminals or foreign interests to funnel large amounts of nearly undetectable cash to the BHO campaign.
Likewise it wouldn’t be that difficult for foreigners or criminals or terrorists to donate to McCain’s campaign. John himself may not be overly familiar with the internets, but his campaign people are. And, given the fact that most educated opinion believes Osama bin laden wants John McCain to win, I’d say it’s highly probably there’s a danger McCain is being partially financed by Al Qaeda’s online campaign contributions. I personally don’t put too much stock in the theory that campaign contributors gain much influence or access, but if I had to choose, I’d rather a president be influenced to, say, relax immigration laws than to relax our vigilance against nuclear terrorism.
October 19th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
1)The problem with “Free Speech” is that it ain’t free. You have the case where an ISRAELI Billionaire like Haim Saban can get dual citizenship and then dump $15 Million into the Democratic Party in one electoral cycle. Followed by other billionaire supporters of Israel like S Daniel Abraham.
2) Consequently, you get a pack of Democratic Senators and Representatives like Hillary Clinton voting to send US citizens to die in IRaq for the sake of Israel.
George W Bush and Karl Rove are snickering because they’ve manipulated Democratic corruption to serve Big Oil.
3) Meanwhile 100 million Americans –including the families of those dead soldiers — are too poor to have ANY VOICE in US politics. Their voices do not show up on TV or on the pages of the NY Times and Wash Post OpEds.
4) It’s a truly filthy system –but it’s supported by many of the Democratic elite as well as by those who own the Republican party.
5) Matthew sneers –but John McCain is one of two Senators responsible for ensuring that Haim Saban wasn’t dumping $100 MILLION into installing his puppet Hillary in the White House this time around.
October 19th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
How would such an animal be constitutional? Full public financing of campaigns would mean no private sources of funding, right? I know the Supreme Court has said it’s permissible to limit private contributions, but would it be permissible to limit them all the way down to zero?
Jasper, if Obama and other ‘progressives’ hold the White House for long enough, we may see Buckley v. Valeo get overruled. And then such an animal would be constitutional. Though I agree that it shouldn’t be.
October 19th, 2008 at 6:34 pm
I don’t think it’s really necessary to respond in great depth to someone like Jasper, since he doesn’t realize that a large number of small donations can add up to much more than $2300 (see #13 above). In fact, Mr. “Good Will” donated thousands more than $2300 to BHO using that technique.
And, the McCain campaign has made all their donor info public; BHO has not. And, both McCain and Clinton had safeguards in place that the BHO campaign has not. In fact, at one point the popup menu on their donation page included countries like Iran.
Crikey: over a decade ago I remember inserting boilerplate in a contract about not using the product in terrorism-sponsoring countries on the State Dept’s list. Now comes the BHO campaign with those terrorism-sponsoring countries in their list of countries from which people could donate money to his campaign.
You guys really, really, really need to think about this in more depth. Everything is going to come out. Perhaps those GOPpers who support BHO are doing so because they know it’s going to destroy the Democratic Party.
October 19th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
Perhaps those GOPpers who support BHO are doing so because they know it’s going to destroy the Democratic Party.
Smarter trolls would be nice. Or at least ones with more talent.
October 19th, 2008 at 6:56 pm
It’s always highly amusing to hear Republicans argue that there’s something underhanded about a Democrat raising more money by getting more people to donate to his campaign and winning elections by getting more people to vote for him.
Everything is going to come out
This is precisely the reason that perpetrating a large-scale fraud using lots of small campaign donations is nigh-impossible: because even the most cursory randomized audit would detect a pattern of illegal donations resulting in serious legal consequences. And for what? To raise $500 million instead of a mere $450 million?
the Obama Method is still troubling insofar as it involves a systematic class bias in favor of politicians who appeal to the kind of people likely to make campaign contributions — i.e., relatively prosperous people.
Look, really, how “relatively prosperous” do you have to be to pony up $100 every 4 years to support a candidate you want? How much does the median person spend on books, music, and/or movies every year?
October 19th, 2008 at 7:01 pm
the Obama Method is still troubling insofar as it involves a systematic class bias in favor of politicians who appeal to the kind of people likely to make campaign contributions — i.e., relatively prosperous people.
The reason for Obama’s huge numbers are that the boundaries of this supposed “class” of people that donate to campaigns are being dismantled. All of us finance campaigns. Sure, prosperous folks give more. But many, many average people can afford to give $10 or $20 bucks and they have been doing so.
This kind of fundraising (no corporate contributions, $2300 cap on individual contributions) is a form of accountability to the electorate. It gives candidates a real stake in appealing to a broader base. These are good things.
October 19th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
You have completely gotten this wrong….
“…. the Obama Method is still troubling insofar as it involves a systematic class bias in favor of politicians who appeal to the kind of people likely to make campaign contributions — i.e., relatively prosperous people”
wrong, wrong, wrong – the Obama campaign is exactly the opposite. It appeals to the kind of people who AREN’T likely to make campaign contributions – therein lies it’s astounding success. $86 average is not the hallmark of prosperous people.
October 19th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
PS.
…you doofus
October 19th, 2008 at 7:11 pm
My favorite campaign finance reform is to make it a felony to use the airwaves -which are owned by the government so there is no free speech issue- to advocate to vote for any candidate or to criticize any candidates. This would be strictly enforced and also apply to news broadcasts. Campaigns could use TV and radio for government sponsored debates, and might be given additional time with restrictions.
If you do that, you almost don’t need any other reforms. Any money campaigns raise would have to be plowed into GOTV, which at least would raise turnout. No more basing your campaign to blanket the airwaves with money to compete for low information voters.
Another benefit of this approach is that you don’t get into the major party/ minor party/ independent thicket, except for who to invite to the debates. Just bar all campaigns from the public airwaves.
I happen to like full disclosure, and I think at the end of the election campaigns should be rebated a certain amount of money by the government for each vote received (and they can borrow against their expected vote total). This also puts minor parties and independents on an even playing field, in fact it would now be feasible to run a gadfly campaign for local office, spend about $500, and get a couple hundred back after making whatever point you wanted to make.
I think any other reforms can be too easily gamed, and often really do get used like the ballot access rules to lock down elections for incumbents.
October 19th, 2008 at 7:14 pm
Hah. But us librul do-gooders are much more likely to give $50-$500 in the vague hope it’ll make the world better. Selfish bastards are gonna try and free-ride. I say push the cap lower.
October 19th, 2008 at 7:15 pm
Worries that individual Americans will exceed the donation cap of $2300 misses the point. The only way to exceed the cap is to make many anonymous online donations. But if your donations are anonymous, well there isn’t much worry about corruption. Obama isn’t going to be influenced by people if he doesn’t know who they are.
Purely out of curiosity, I wonder what fraction of contributions are anonymous or hidden. I think it would actually be pretty difficult to tell. If the contributor fills out the online form as Mickey Mouse, Anytown USA, that’s pretty obvious, but how would you systematically search through a database of hundreds of thousands of contributors to find those that are not real names and addresses.
October 19th, 2008 at 7:30 pm
I find myself rarely in agreement with Tyro, but what he, FRB, and Jody C said.
October 19th, 2008 at 7:47 pm
My favorite campaign finance reform is to make it a felony to use the airwaves -which are owned by the government so there is no free speech issue- to advocate to vote for any candidate or to criticize any candidates. This would be strictly enforced and also apply to news broadcasts. Campaigns could use TV and radio for government sponsored debates, and might be given additional time with restrictions.
They could advertise on cable and satellite radio.
October 19th, 2008 at 7:48 pm
A candidate bought and paid for by the American people. We can’t have that! Who will pay Rick Davis to lobby if this keeps up?
October 19th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
Shorter john McCain:
“Look at that good-for-nothing black man, not taking welfare!”
October 19th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
The Obama campaign has 3.1 million donors and has raised somewhere just north of $600 total for the general. Simple math shows that the average in total donations per donor is less than $200. Even if a million of the donors only gave $1, the average donation of the other 2 million would be less than $300. If 2 million donors gave only $1, the average for the remaining million would just under $600. With that many donors, it’s not mathematically feasible for there to enough illegal donations to make a difference.
October 19th, 2008 at 8:32 pm
should be: “just north of $600 million for the general.”
October 19th, 2008 at 8:34 pm
Smarter trolls would be nice. Or at least ones with more talent.
Nah, I like Lonewacko. His (her?) need to be liked is so palpably desperate that I find it kind of charming.
October 19th, 2008 at 8:47 pm
His (her?) need to be liked is so palpably desperate that I find it kind of charming.
I dunno, I kind of find it sad and pathetic that someone obviously puts so much time and effort to writing and promoting his blog and yet gets little or nothing out of it. I saddens me to see a lot of hard work expended on essentially nothing.
October 19th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
And, both McCain and Clinton had safeguards in place that the BHO campaign has not. In fact, at one point the popup menu on their donation page included countries like Iran.
LOL! That is some classic trolling!
October 19th, 2008 at 9:31 pm
Geesh. Obama can’t win. He turns down taxpayer $$$ to take voluntary private donations to save Joe The Plumber from having to ’spread the wealth’ and he still takes a wrath of shit.
McCain has to make up his minds…
October 19th, 2008 at 9:41 pm
I’m a supporter of full public financing of political campaigns.
One other thing on this. If there was full public financing we’d be seeing McCain vs Clinton in a dead heat, or perhaps even McCain vs Edwards with McCain pulling away due to zipper issues. It is unlikely that Obama would have been able to build enough organization to win Iowa and parlay the momentum of that win to achieve the string of all his early victories.
October 19th, 2008 at 10:25 pm
A lot of this money is laundered money coming in from very dubious sources, likely much of it originating from implacable foes of America, both foreign and domestic. Obama is well-versed in Chicago politics and the mechanics of laundering dirty money towards political ends. The Daley political machine has long maintained such ties with the Italian mob and more recently with black and Latino drug-dealing street gangs. Obama independently developed his own contacts with the latter during his days as a community organizer (and perhaps also as customer for his own drug habits). Working through his terrorist buddy Ayers, he has also developed ties with Hugo Chavez, FARC and various Latin American drug cartels. The government of Iran has openly expressed support and undoubtedly is delighted to subsidize his campaign. Soros and Moveon are undoubtedly on the case as well. ACORN maintains extensive lists of real and bogus voters and is ideally suited to funneling dirty money ostensibly through these voters.
Fortunately Obama’s advertising blitz is starting to backfire bigtime, as the American people get sick and tired of wall-to-wall leftist bullshit propaganda. The more they see and hear, the less likely they are to buy it, as the polls are clearly beginning to show.
October 19th, 2008 at 11:22 pm
Funny – all the reports I’ve been seeing have McCain’s robo-call campaign generating the complaints. People can TURN OFF the TV and radio. Getting called several times at dinner and in the early evening starts to get hackles up.
And since the Obama campaign’s advertising blitz didn’t even really start till last week it seems a bit premature to say it’s starting to backfire – especially since financial meltdown, job losses, housing losses, medical coverage losses, and stuff like that tend to focus a lot of minds on how much sense that “leftist bullshit propaganda” makes when the crunch really comes.
October 19th, 2008 at 11:35 pm
The discussion of the McCain/Clinton safeguards that the BHO campaign didn’t have – as well as the fact that the BHO campaign allowed contributors to state they were from Iran and North Korea is here. The expected response will be to doubt the source. However, that author has obtained statements from the BHO campaign, and the BHO campaign has not issued a press release contradicting his article to my knowledge.
Also, MattY really needs to get a handle on the childish TP commenters who are apparently coming over here, because no one’s going to take him seriously if they see people making stupid comment after stupid comment.
October 19th, 2008 at 11:49 pm
This is a dumb idea. Public financing will just encourage candidates to play to the media more in exchange for free air time. You can see that’s what McCain has been doing: stunt after stunt, just to get on the air, because they didn’t have enough money to compete with Obama head to head. Institute full public financing and every candidate will be a dog doing tricks for the media in return for treats. Dumb idea.
October 20th, 2008 at 12:14 am
Wow, so the Obama site ALLOWS people to state (or claim) where they are from?!?! Now that is some dam’ subversive stuff right there, youbetcha!
Seems to me that letting stupid people put down shit like that is actually a pretty good screening mechanism. I kinda doubt that there are a lot of valid credit cards that have home addresses in North Korea. Maybe a few more in Iran – but I doubt that the people holding them have the bills delivered to Tehran.
I’d say it’s more likely that the people claiming to be from North Korea and Iran are McCain operatives. Since the McCain campaign has not released a press statement contradicting my assertion (that I just made) I declare that that is proof positive that they are making donations to the Obama campaign claiming to be North Koreans or Iranians.
Hmmm – of course, the McCain campaign has not denied the rumor (that I just created) that they are making the donations ON BEHALF OF North Koreans and Iranians. Obviously the McCain campaign are AGENTS of North Korea and Iran.
Waterboarding McCain and all his staff is absolutely required to get at the truth at this point.
And remember – it isn’t torture anymore – it’s only “enhanced interrogation techniques”.
October 20th, 2008 at 12:30 am
Oh noes, Kelly the Tinfoil Twat thinks that the Mescans are paying for Obama’s ads.
Who funds the Website Formerly Known As LoneWacko.com? Is it what we presume, which is 23 racists hitting refresh every 5 minutes to bring up new ads? Or could it be more sinister?
October 20th, 2008 at 12:38 am
I can’t wait until Kelly gets to ask one of those hard kwestins in public about Ayatollah Gomez donating $1.34m to Obama.
Actually, I can: it’s not going to happen, because that would involve Kelly leaving his basement. It is to laugh.
October 20th, 2008 at 2:01 am
Another problem with public financing is that it allows the government to essentially shut up candidates it does not like by denying them funding, because they cannot get private funding to compensate. This happened, i think, to the Vlaams Blok party in Belgium.
October 20th, 2008 at 2:43 am
I would make an argument against Matt here . . . but better men have already done so.
October 20th, 2008 at 2:54 am
I’d love to know how these anonymous donors transmit their contributions to Obama. When I have donated I used that odd modern convenience known as a credit card, and oddly enough it has a name attached to it. Strangely, the card company won’t issue it unless there is a mailing address to which the bill can be sent. If you put a name that doesn’t match the card, the credit card transaction won’t complete. These dark forces giving shady money to Obama must be awfully good at their jobs.
October 20th, 2008 at 4:36 am
Republicans hate Government spending, right? Don’t they also embrace “user pays” as a general approach to things. They also favour individual rights over collective good, as a general reflex. So you would think they would love the Obama model for campaign finance. It ticks all the boxes… except one. It only works if lots of people really like your policies and want you to be president. Oh dear.
October 20th, 2008 at 8:27 am
Anyway, the influence of money on elections has been vastly overstated, probably because of well-intentioned worries about the integrity of the democratic process. <a href=”http://filipspagnoli.wordpress.com/2008/10/14/human-rights-cartoon-107-the-effect-of-money-on-elections/”Here’s a post about a research paper looking into this.
October 20th, 2008 at 8:28 am
sorry, forget a >; the post is here
October 20th, 2008 at 9:32 am
Hee hee! You guys are even funnier when you’re losing, no one believes you, and even when they do believe you, they still prefer Obama!
Hee hee!
But seriously — I hope you really do believe all that right wing “Obama is a drug-dealing Communisto-Muslim” stuff so that you’ll run off to your basement bomb-shelter or your idiot militias in Montana or where ever, so that you can be alone as you weep yourselves through the collapse of Nixon-Reaganism.
October 20th, 2008 at 9:59 am
Powell called Senator Obama transformative. Nothing in Obama’s campaign has been more transformative than his fund raising, which skyrocketed after the Palin nomination. While investments have universally gone into the tank, Obama with his invitation for small donations–$25 for a long time being a half tank of gas–that have been funded from all levels of the American economic sphere, particularly the middle class, provided a safe haven for those who wanted to stand up to the extreme right wing virulence of the McCain campaign. As it became more virulent, more people dropped a couple more sawbucks into the mix. Obama’s campaign’s recognition that the hunger for a change from right wing bullying, self aggrandizement, and incompetence could lead to a financial investment that would solidify an emotional investment because millions would have a real (ie material) stake in his victory this November. Those are two of Senator Obama’s traits that give us hope, even when we disagree with him: his consistent ability to make lemonade and get the populace to have personal stakes in his success at doing so.
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