Tonight We're Gonna Party Like It's 1952! (JM)

Wellity, wellity, wellity, wellity. Let it never be said that the telecom industry doesn't return favors. I don't exactly who will be hosting this party, but you can be that the likely suspects include our good buddy Sen. Jay Rockefeller and long time personal favorite of mine, Sen. Claire "Oh, won't someone please think of the telecoms!" McCaskill. Well even if we don't have the ability to sue telecom companies for wiretapping, at least the Blue Dogs will have a kickin' party. Please don't discuss politics, it makes them uncomfortable.

Snark aside, there's a bigger issue here. Despite the Obama campaign's unwillingness to take corporate or PAC money in to his campaign, certain campaign events (and many parts of the convention) are sponsored by this money. It certainly raises the question of whether or not we can ever have an electoral system that doesn't have corporate influence. I have always thought that publically-funded elections with a complete ban on private funding, were the solution. In the end, however, I wonder if this wouldn't just marginalize corporate money in to other, less-trackable areas of the political playing field. I am aware that this is a criticism that has been leveled before, but it's one that has become clearer and clearer in this election. As political campaigns get bigger, the terrain more expansive and the methods of campaign far more diverse it is becoming tougher and tougher to hold the floodgates of corporate money closed. But that doesn't mean that's not a fight worth having.

Hat Tip: Matt Stoller

Reasons for Disappointment (JM)

This has been a pretty disappointing weekend here at AOTG, but one of the standouts is John McCain. You see, up until now I had assumed that this election was going end being between two people I respected, no matter what their positions on certain issues were. I had started turning a blind eye to some of McCain's pandering, convincing myself that he was just doing what needed to be done in a fairly vicious GOP primary process.

But then came this story, by Paul Kiel of Talking Point Memo, in which John McCain seems to be gaming the public financing system. Read the story for the details, it's worth knowing about, but essentially McCain took up a loan and secured it with the collateral of eventual public financing. However, had he done that straight up, he would have been committed to taking the matching funds and abiding by a strict campaign spending limit. Instead, he secured the loan, with the caveat that should he have successful fundraising (i.e. seriously compete for the nomination) he would not be obliged to take the funds. Essentially, public funding became a failsafe to payback campaign debt should the McCain team fail to find its legs.

This came to me as something of an incredibly disappointment. For all of McCain's flaws, he had always shared with me a passion for what I consider to be the most important issue in politics, campaign finance reform. Without such reform, any and all issues are necessarily tainted. We can reform the electoral system we have and still, so long as campaigns depend on money and money flows freely from corporate interests, so too will the legislation created by Congress be tainted.

So now here we sit at the cusp of an election, where two great champions of campaign finance reform refuse to, either of them, accept the mutual playing field established by public financing. It's easy to respect a John McCain who talks a good game, when he has nothing on the line. He is free to rail against corporate donations when running for Senator in Arizona; he's never going to lose. But when the chips are down the Straight Talk Express derails, he calls the Confederate flag "heritage", he supports making the Bush tax cuts permanent and campaign finance reform remains an excellent dream while he fills his warchest as fast as possible to compete against the Democratic fundraising machine (who thought I'd ever be able to write that phrase).

I guess the moral of this story is that maybe it's time to stop believing in politicians who claim not to be politicians. Perhaps it is a cynical lesson, but perhaps we live in a cynical world. I think I speak for both halves of AOTG when I say we'll be casting our ballots for the Democratic candidate in November, but, at least in the case of this half the name "John McCain" on the other side will no longer give me pause.

Take the Money and Run (JM)

So I am baffled, I am puzzled. Obama is currently debating whether or not to take public financing for the general. Of course, I think that it is still a bit too early to be having this debate (clearly the Obama camp wants to engage it, in order to create an air of inevitability). However, it's a debate worth having and I think the answer is pretty clear: public financing.

It's strange, out in the liberal blogosphere people seem to think that this is a pretty big mistake. For instance, Oliver Willis argues that we in the Democratic party finally have the advantage in fundraising and we should beat McCain in to the ground with it. Now, I agree that the McCain offer to mutually take public funding is probably a bit strategic, but the fact is that if campaign finance reform is at all an important issue this is the time we can cease on it.

Obama has made much of the fact that he is all about campaign reform, for him to refuse public funding here would look hypocritical. The fact is if he is our nominee all the good will he has towards him now (you know: Barack Obama is sunshine and rainbows and all that is good) will evaporate. The press loves loves loves Juan McCain, he's a doddering old man who once was tortured because he refused to betray America. Obama cannot be the better person in this election, and must do all he can to maintain his, "I'm not politics as usual" image.

Refusing to take the funding is similar to the kind of move the pro-immunity FISA democrats take. It's cowardly and craven and directed towards the end of getting elected at all costs. The problem is that when the GOP sticks to their principles they can still take advantage of these opportunities, but if we really want this to be a game changing election we need to stick to good, liberal principles. Remember, that in the long run the GOP had innate advantages amongst the corporate money set. Setting the trend of publically financed elections now is only to our long term advantage.

Finally, we are NOT going to lose this election. Either candidate will be able to beat McCain. All they need to do is hit him on economics and Iraq and this should be a landslide. Remember polling does not account for the absurd turnout advantage we've seen in these primaries. By all accounts this is a Democratic year, let's do this right for a change.