On Obama, McCain & Public Financing
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in 2008 Election, Barack, McCain, MoneyLooks like McCain is making moves to accept public financing, but Marc Ambinder makes a good point…
My sense is that Obama campaign will probably call on its army of small donors to each contribute $100 to the general election effort, accumulate 1 million donations, and challenge the McCain campaign to explain how that’s not public financing.
Indeed.
This entry was posted on Saturday, April 5th, 2008 and is filed under 2008 Election, Barack, McCain, Money. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
April 5th, 2008 at 11:15 pm
That would be brilliant of Obama, and it would allow him to amass hundreds of millions
April 6th, 2008 at 7:29 am
It is real simple, it IS NOT public financing. Public financing doesn’t have anything to do with amount given by donors — “hey look - everyone in the world gave me a nickle - I’m the world’s most successful panhandler.” Public financing puts a cap ON THE AMOUNT SPENT - it doesn’t matter where you get it.
But this does fit into Obama’s little class-warfare narrative (of course, performed with such eloquence and happiness).
April 6th, 2008 at 8:44 am
If you look at past contributions McCain gets money from just about every big money person/organization in the country - more from them than his actual constituents in AZ. Small contributors don’t seem to enter into the McCain contribution legacy. Obama is the polar opposite - and it’s one of his greatest strengths - he can outraise McCain 10 to 1.
Public Financing means the candidates get the same amount of money, and the money comes from the government I believe through the Federal Election Commission. There are good things and major drawbacks to this type of financing. It removes corporations and activist groups from the money process for one thing. However, it strongly favors the incumbent because of name recognition.
There are a lot of “variables” involved with public financing. For instance, are all groups not directly associated with the campaign(s) prohibited from running adds, TV commercials, and other activities benefiting one campaign over another? Should TV, Radio, and other public broadcasting companies be required to give away free “air” time because they use the public airwaves free of charge and provide no public service to reciprocate.
I understand the difficulties associated with public financing, and there are alot of intricacies involved for it to work effectively. I firmly believe that McCain is re-visiting this issue with Obama for 3 reasons. First, he believes Obama will be the Democratic Nominee. Second, he knows that he can engage in a public relations war with Obama and make financing an election issue…..even though Obama only said he would investigate public financing in a presidential election - not necessarily do it, just investigate the possibility. Third, the only real chance at victory McCain has relies on removing Obama’s deep pockets as a competitive weapon. McCain has built a career on pretending he is a trustworthy and honest public servant - the facts don’t represent that opinion and they will come out. If McCain can take the money out of the race he may stand a somewhat better chance of winning in the general election.