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Jesus Mario don't you ever bother getting more than a surface understanding of things before you rush to a very predictable judgment? Obama promised to use public funding if and only if McCain would agree to abide by public funding rules which McCain has not done. He is currently being sued by the DNC for violation of financing laws.
Back in the fall his campaign was disintegrating McCain secured a loan using public funding as collateral. This is illegal under (ironically) McCain-Feingold. Additionally, McCain's campaign met with Obama's campaign twice in the last two months to come to an agreement on using public financing and McCain's campaign refused to commit both times. Having tried that route (which would have been disadvantageous for his campaign anyway, given his superior fund-raising ability) Obama decided to opt out, in complete accordance with his earlier promise: He would use public financing if McCain agreed to do so also. McCain would not agree. Obama opted out, then McCain opted in. This whole thing was a political game of chess and McCain managed to take one of Obama's pawns while Obama took one of McCain's rooks.
It would be really nice if you would bother considering both sides of an issue just once.
Where's the public outcry?
http://ched-macquigg.blogspot.co...opix-
polls.html
Dan,
Real leadership requires leading by example. I really don't care if Obama raises money or takes public funding. As I'm sure you know, I'm not a proponent of taxpayer funding of campaigns. Nor, for that matter, am I particularly enamored of McCain-Feingold.
My point is simple. There are a lot of Obama supporters who claim that taxpayer financing of elections is the answer to public corruption - a point with which I strongly disagree. Yet, when Obama decides not to run a publicly funded campaign, there is not a demand from his supporters to lead by example. Nor, is there any outcry against his decision.
I think that's hypocritical, not on the part of Obama, but on the part of all of those public funding of campaign advocates.
Another reason is because of the presidential public financing system being completely outdated. No one should be using the system we have now. And who has prevented any updates to it...conservatives.
Let's update the system and then see how it works...I know conservatives hate to fix things...our presidential financing sytem has been updated about as much as most of the infrastructure in this country.
Conservative's main policy stand is to be a roadblock for everything...except war.
Accept the change, its right at your door step.
JD, you're reaching. I expect better from you. I don't recall reading anywhere that the Presidential candidates were complaining that the presidential public financing system was outdated.
Let's get real here. You're giving Obama a pass.
There are a lot of Obama supporters who claim that taxpayer financing of elections is the answer to public corruption ...
Let's get real here - nobody is making the claim the taxpayer funder is THE answer. Nobody is saying that if we had taxpayer funding we wouldn't have to go after the bribe takers such as Randy Cunningham.
Many people are saying that public funding may well be part of the way to help make our electoral system more fair and more representative.
However, being fair can require that everyone play by the same set of rules: that everyone takes public money and eschews private contributions, or nobody does. There's nothing hypocritical or inconsistent in such a position.
Moreover, there are maney different varieties of public funding schemes. They're not all the same. Being in favor of public funding in general doesn't mean that one must favor this particular scheme in this situation.
For example, one might believe that the current federal scheme is only workable if we have a fair and active Federal Election Commission. We don't have a functional FEC right now, because the Republicans have been insisting on pushing the nomination of Mr Spavosky (I ope I spelled that right). Without the FEC, the scheme has a big hole where the referree should be.
Mario, you don't have to look far to find criticism of Obama on this issue on the left. Take about... 30 seconds on Google and you'll find it. If it takes that long.
Also, John McCain was the one who formally pledged to go into public financing THEN tried to pull out -- which is against the law. But you wouldn't mention that, would you?
Only when the FEC finally gets a quorum does McCain scurry back to public financing -- since he was about to be exposed for breaking the law.
I'd read this for some early background on what McCain did that was at best unethical and at worst illegal.
LP, rather than having me spend "30 seconds on Google" why don't you help me out here - consider it a blogger to blogger courtesy. Shoot me over the link on your blog were you criticized Obama for not taking public funding. Or, maybe the post that I missed at Democracy for New Mexico. Or, maybe something from Common Cause NM.
Again, I don't blame Obama. The guy wants to win at any cost - just like any other politician. I just want to make sure that those who fail to criticize him for refusing to public fund his campaign do not push public funding in New Mexico in the future.
Michael, hmm... the Democratic controlled Congress doesn't ensure the FEC has a quorum and that's the Republican's fault. Exactly when do you think the Democrats will begin to take responsibility for their failures. Two years ago, they took over Congress with promises to change everything the better. Two years later we are worse off than we have been in more than a decade. Promises of change have fallen way short of their mark. Or, maybe we can just expect more of the same (and worse) if more Democrats are elected to Congress.
The Democratic controlled Congress ...
You keep using that phrase, even though it's false and misleading. The Democratic party has a majority, but not the supermajority required to override a filibuster. The Republican party has been using the filibuster to stop the Democrats, preventing legislation from coming to a simple up-or-down majority vote.
As for Mr. von Spakovsky (apologies for getting his name mangled), again the Republican party has been using parlimentary maneuvers to prevent legislative action.
Threatening a filibuster, the Republican party insisted on having a single vote for all four nominees: the two republican nominees and the two Democratic. Under the FEC rules, each party gets to nominate two, and there must be two from each party. Thus, the Democratic majority was prevented from voting down Mr. von Spakovsky.
If more democrats are elected to congress the Republican Party won't be able to use the filibuster to prevent the change this country needs, and that will be good.
So, when will the Republican party accept responsibility for the inaction their filibustering has caused?
Remember the good old days (three years ago) when Mario was decrying the obstructionist Democrats for filibustering a tiny proportion of Bush judge appointees? Mario isn't it time for you to be consistent and point out that the GOP is *much worse* in that it is using the filibuster for *any bill* they don't like?
I guess you're glad that the gang of 14 prevented the GOP from the "nuclear option" (elimination of the filibuster) back then now aren't you?
Inre: public finance, you've exposed yourself again. You couldn't care less about either 1) The concept of public finance or 2) The concept that Obama somehow broke a promise (he did not.) You're just schilling for your team as usual. Whats it like to have no intellectual honesty whatsoever?
How many times are you going to go back to this "Obama did something politicians do during elections! What happened to the politics of hope? I thought he was the messiah!" nonsense? You realize that this tactic was invented by the Hillary Clinton campaign, right? You're not going to convince anyone with it who wasn't already going to reflexively vote against any Democratic candidate up to and including Jesus Christ. Stupid liberal Jesus with his turn the other cheek pie in the sky pinkoism.
In a way, Obama's campaign IS publically financed. Most of his funding so far is via small donation.
Small donations indicate a campaign financed by regular working people, lots of 'em!
Common Cause has been one of the major advocates for expanding public campaign financing here in NM. Although we're a nonpartisan organization that was founded by a Republican and is currently chaired by a Republican, I'm guessing Mario is confusedly characterizing CC and its allies as "the left". Whatever the case, CC immediately released a statement following Obama's opting out from the system. It's on the front page of our national website at www.commoncause.org. It requires a somewhat deeper analysis of the current presidential public financing system than Mario provides to understand why this was inevitable and what aspects of the system need to be updated for it to function properly again. You can find that analysis on the CC webpage as well. Click on the "Money in Politics" tab on the left column and go to "presidential public financing." In the end, the most annoying thing about Obama opting out of the system is that he broke his word and then failed to use the opportunity to specifically explain why this valuable system badly needs to be updated for the 21st century.
Steven Robert Allen
Executive Director
Common Cause NM
One more thing: It's simply not true that Obama has ONLY been funded by small donations, and he'll be getting plenty of larger contributions as we move toward the general election. Large donations made up more than half of Obama's contributions in 2007, at the beginning of his campaign, when he needed it most to win Iowa. His small donor surge is definitely amazing, but it needs to be put in proper perspective.
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