RNC Sues For Campaign Finance Law To Be Overturned
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Law, Legislation, McCain, Money, RepublicansNot that it’s any surprise, but McCain will clearly not be the leader of the GOP.
Republican activists, donors, state party chairs, national committee men and women HATED the soft money ban because they (a) well, many of them thought it was unconstitutional but (b) more prosaically, they worried it would give an energized Democratic Party an edge in fundraising and (c) even more pragmatically, the party funded a lot of its stuff with soft money and always had an edge over Democrats.At the time, the RNC’s hard dollar donate-by-mail lists were the pride of the industry, but Howard Dean was quickly transforming the campaign finance landscape for Democrats. [...]
There has literally been no more propitious a moment for the RNC to attempt to challenge the soft money ban. It’s kind of a ploy. Why not concentrate on policy? Making up the internet deficit? Modernizing the Voter Vault database? How soon do they expect the courts to rule on this? (This won’t be done before the 2009 governors races…sorry.)
Still, the Republicans run the risk of being known as the party that brought back “pay for play” money into the system after one of their own got bi-partisan support to kick it out. Not exactly a great way to start off the new image of the GOP.
Instead, they should focus on internet operations and catch up to the Campaign 2.0 tech that Obama builts.
And while many will blame Obama for this, he played by the rules when it came to financing and soft money. He simply didn’t take public financing, which is a completely different than what the RNC is saying. Oh, they’ll try to confuse the two, but they’re distinctly different because one plays within the rules and one seeks to make unlimited donations by corporations and individuals deemed “free speech” by the Supreme Court.
More as it develops…
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November 13th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
Let’s cut right to the chase. Campaign finance reform was passed with the promise of two things:
[1]ensuring that the presidential candidates had comparable amounts of money to spend on their campaigns,
[2] substantially reducing the influence of big-money special interests
Does anyone think it delivered? Anyone?
November 13th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
Kranky, it’s always seemed doomed. On the other hand, I consider the idea of campaign contributions=free speech to be ridiculous. So rich people and corporations get more political speech than I do? Seems fair. After all, moneyed self-interest has historically had the general welfare at heart. ahem.
November 13th, 2008 at 7:01 pm
“So rich people and corporations get more political speech than I do?”
Like it or not, yes. The constitution says “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech”. “No law” seems pretty clear to me. Do you complain about the New York Times or The Wall Street Journal having more speech than you do?
November 13th, 2008 at 11:32 pm
Don’t kid yourself, big money, big corporations, hedge funds and big contributors were the meat and potatoes of Obama’s financing. Public financing is dead and I’m couldn’t be happier. The Republicans could never kill this beast, but Obama put a stake through it’s heart. Rest In Peace.