campaign finance

The brewing conservative war on the Republican establishment has gotten a lot of ink lately, and we can only expect more of it with the rise and rise of Marco Rubio. 

This means kick starting a generational transition to the new fundraising model. Right now, we cannot compete with the Democrats' scalable online fundraising machine and if this is not corrected our party will face a long-term financial deficit. A big part of this will be growing a millions-strong network of supporters and giving them something to rally around. Moreover, our candidate recruitment should focus less on a candidate's ability to collect $2,300 checks or to self-fund than on the strength of their message -- which will ultimately attract more small and high dollar donors online and off. Traditional fundraising is still important, but in modern campaigns, it's more like startup venture capital money than a long-term cash cow. 

In February, when the GOP was still in a fetal position after the drubbing they received at the hands of Obama's half-billion dollar online juggernaut, I expanded on this point: 

Last month In March, the Supreme Court heard the case Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission, in which the FEC banned the showing the film Hillary: The Movie, an attack piece on Hillary Clinton, shortly before last year's elections. Under McCain-Feingold campaign finance legislation, that type of regulation is currently backed by law.

The Court will release its decision in the next few weeks, which will hopefully turn McCain-Feingold on its head.

If the FEC can ban a movie under the first amendment, what other kinds of speech can the government get away with censoring? The experts here say even books could be next. The question is, where should we draw the line? Or, when it comes to speech, should we draw the line at all?

This video sheds some light on the case, and examines what might happen if the Supreme Court rules in favor of the FEC.

NOT

THE INFLUENCE GAME: New record for number of PACs

WASHINGTON – More groups than ever are contributing money to presidential and congressional candidates as their strongest growth in a generation reflects the fervor over last year's White House election and a desire for access and clout on Capitol Hill.

The Federal Election Commission says that on Jan. 1 there were 4,611 political action committees, which are formed by companies, unions or other groups to raise and spend money to help presidential and congressional candidates. That was 9 percent more than the 4,234 PACs a year earlier.

Well, maybe this is why Obama is optimistic about the economy all of a sudden.

There's boom times going on in the influence peddling industry!

Not good:

WASHINGTON — Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama reports raising more than $150 million in September in an unprecedented eruption of political giving.

The influx of money has helped the Illinois senator expand the field of competitive states and has widened his financial advantage over Republican rival John McCain.

The monthly figure pushed Obama's total fundraising to $605 million, unseen before in presidential politics. The campaign offered no details, but must submit a monthly report to the Federal Election Commission on Monday.

When I got the email from the Obama campaign, I was about to hit post on something projecting Obama at $104M for the month, based on the relative uptick of Obama Google search queries from August. (My high end projection was $126M.) Since much of Obama's giving is online, this seemed like a decent enough proxy, and this measure has been predictive in the past.

If the current ratio of voter interest to giving extends into October, then Obama has raised $114 million so far in October, on his way to at least $190 million for the month.

Obviously, my optimism on Obama's public financing gambit will probably not stand out as one of my finer blog moments. I probably should have listened to my instincts from earlier in the campaign on this one.

A couple of parting thoughts.

First, public finance in the general election is dead, dead, dead. Any nominee from now on can safely opt out because the Internet makes it for the public to massively participate. If we had not had a nominee with such misguided instincts on campaign finance reform, Republicans probably would have figured this out this time. McCain raised $47 million in August, or 71% of Obama's total, and he raised $10 million in 2 days because of Sarah Palin. Had this trend continued into September, McCain would have raised over $100 million for the month. By the time the McCain campaign figured out it was possible to excite the base, it was too late. 

Second, what does Obama do with the extra money? A three-to-one ad ratio in a given state is worth about a point in the polls. But that's in states with at least a decent baseline of Republican advertising. What's it worth in states where McCain can't advertise at all, like North Dakota or Georgia? 3 or 4 points? Does Obama move into states at the fringes of the target map to 1) heighten the sense of panic in the GOP? and 2) go for 400 EVs? Can he legally bail out the committees to go for 270 in the House and 60 in the Senate?

Either way, this is going to be the political equivalent of Sherman's March.

In response to convictions of former state legislators in Alaska, liberal organizations and labor unions have placed the "Clean Elections Act," Ballot Initiative #3, on the August 26th primary ballot, which would institute public funding for legislative campaigns. Taxpayers in Maine and Arizona, states which have recently approved public financing, are learning that their money, which could be going towards legitimate government priorities like infrastructure improvement and education, are instead financing partisan politics.

Public financing actually decreases competitiveness in elections, which decreases choice for voters in a democracy. Incumbents in Arizona were re-elected at a higher rate after public financing was enacted; the number of candidates fell from 247 to 195 according to the Goldwater Institute. Furthermore, public financing limits a challenger’s ability to communicate with voters. By limiting the amount of money that can be spent in campaigns, it limits the amount of information that voters receive.

Voters in Oregon have a chance to prohibit public financing in November. Ballot Measure #25 would ban the use of public resources for political campaigns. Bill Sizemore, the initiative’s sponsor, tried twice to pass similar measures within the last decade, only to be defeated by labor union money.

If voters want tackle corruption in government, they should look at South Dakota's Open and Clean Government Act, Initiated Measure #10. It would not only prohibit taxpayer funded campaigns and lobbying. It would also create "information on state contracts that would be available for review on a searchable website."

BOTTOM LINE: When it comes to solving corruption and lack of ethics in government, public financing of campaigns is the wrong answer; instead, the conservative movement should support policies that increase transparency in campaigns and in government.

You have to give the Obama campaign points for hutzpah. Granted Obama's decision to bypass public financing after he signed a pledge to take it is probably smart politics. However, his web site is now marketting that broken promise as a declaration of, "Independence from a broken system". I suppose stating 'I lied, but please send me money anyways' would not be that effective a fundraiser, but it certainly would be more honest than pretending that this was some sort of noble decision. Referencing the Declaration of Independence to cover up this old school political maneuver is clever and shady.

Graphic on entry page at BarackObama.com

The thing that annoys me most about Barack Obama’s blatantly broken promise this week is that it’s very difficult to use against him.  The mainstream media doesn’t seem to care much (shocker, I know), it’s far too abstract and complicated an issue to use effectively in paid media and frankly, the public has a long record of ignoring process issues short of real corruption.  But, there’s one forum the McCain campaign can deploy it in – a debate.   

John McCain should directly confront Obama with his broken promise during one of their debates.  Forget the heavily structured format Obama’s staff will insist on, McCain gets to break the format once or twice and address Obama directly.  One caveat.  A little righteous indignation is fine, but he can’t sound too angry because it plays into a preexisting negative meme. 

Why does this work?  Because McCain is highlighting his core strengths and creates the opportunity for an Obama gaffe.  McCain’s narrative is about honor, service and sacrifice.  He is everything Obama claims to be and he’s extremely comfortable in an unstructured town hall style format.  The issue simultaneously reinforces his narrative and undercuts Obama’s strengths.

More important is the psy-ops aspect.  Obama has run his campaign from a cocoon and his isolation makes him vulnerable.  He has a history of poor debate performances in unstructured, high pressure situations and although he’ll have likely have prepped for the issue, he has the potential to make a major gaffe. 

McCain is capable of pulling this off, and he’s ballsy enough to go for it.  At worst Obama won’t screw up and no harm done but at best, it’s a great potential “You’re no Jack Kennedy” moment.

Patrick Ruffini has written an excellent post explaining how Barack Obama's justification for skipping public funding is fundamentally deceitful.  The problem, of course, is not with private financing, but with what this says about Obama. 

Given the choice between keeping his word and keeping the money, Barack Obama chose money.

In his self-serving, disingenuous video opting out of the public financing system today, Obama claimed that his decision to run the first corporate-funded general election campaign since Richard Nixon and CREEP represented "true" public financing and that it was necessary to fight back against a McCain campaign funded by PACs and lobbyists.

Obama has long raised the PACs and lobbyists canard to squeeze more money out of the pocketbooks of his small donors, even though he dramatically outraised and outspent Hillary Clinton in the primary campaign. Obama's campaign doesn't take lobbyist or PAC money, and since Obama became the nominee, neither will the DNC.

But just how big a factor are PACs and lobbyists in Presidential election fundraising?

Not much. Read on.

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Barack Obama has just released a video to his supporters, explaining his not too secret decision to forgo public campaign funding. That he did it himself, in a video, shows that he recognizes that he has significant exposure on this issue based upon previous public statements and promises.

Obama proffers that his rejection of over "$80 million in public funds" is a noble gesture. And he blames his decision on the 'facts' that 1) the public finance system is somehow broken, and 2) it's John McCain's fault. The esteemed Senator claims that McCain is a stooge of special interests with unlimited pockets, and that McCain's 527s are prepared to spend limitless amounts to libel and slander Obama. In fact, Obama claims that McCain is refusing to call off the 527s - and that his people must fight back!

This video is deeply disturbing to anyone who knows any facts about the present political environment. The special interest money isn't coming to the GOP - the overwhelming majority is flowing into the Democratic Party coffers. The reason is simple - the Democrats are the ones currently in power, and Obama is favored to win the Presidency. The overwhelming majority of 527s are Democrat and liberal funded - simply extensions of the Democratic Party. They were originally set up, and primarily funded by George Soros, to skirt the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law. In fact, Soros was seeding these groups at the same time he was donating and supporting McCain's reforms efforts in the Senate. Useful idiots, indeed.

Also, as has been reported earlier on American Thinker, Barack Obama has promised in writing that he would not only be a participant in the public finance system for the general election, but challenged others in the race to agree to it as well. John McCain was the only one to do so. Obama, at the time, knew that he was a good fundraiser on his own, but that didn't stop him from agreeing to refund any excess money in donations to the individual donors when he joined the public system for the general election. Here’s Obama, in his own, written words:

I have been a long-time advocate for public financing of campaigns combined with free television and radio time as a way to reduce the influence of moneyed special interests. I introduced public financing legislation in the Illinois State Senate, and am the only 2008 candidate to have sponsored Senator Russ Feingold's (DWI) bill to reform the presidential public financing system. In February 2007, I proposed a novel way to preserve the strength of the public financing system in the 2008 election. My plan requires both major party candidates to agree on a fundraising truce, return excess money from donors, and stay within the public financing system for the general election. My proposal followed announcements by some presidential candidates that they would forgo public financing so they could raise unlimited funds in the general election. The Federal Election Commission ruled the proposal legal, and Senator John McCain (r-AZ) has already pledged to accept this fundraising pledge. If I am the Democratic nominee, I will aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election. [emphasis added]

Meanwhile, the Democrats are attacking John McCain's attempts to level the playing field and opt out of the public financing system that he and Obama had previously agreed to participate in. They've launched their attacks on two fronts. First, they have filed a suit against the FEC for not investigating their claim that McCain's use of donations as a pledge to obtain a loan to keep his campaign afloat was illegal - and allege that McCain can't opt out of the public financing system until the FEC rules on his case. Which brings us to the second front - the FEC isn't functioning because Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is refusing to confirm new commissioners, thus insuring that there can be no quorum on the FEC. Without a quorum, there can't be any votes. Without any votes, the FEC can't conduct its oversight duties. So the Democratic Party is suing the FEC because of actions (or inactions) that the Democratic Party itself is actively causing. The Democrats are gaming the system. It's brilliant - and totally crooked.

Obama, in being as slick as Bill Clinton ever dreamed of being, did make one mistake, however. In his first comment to his supporters on the video, Obama stated as fact that the public finance system is broken. John McCain should immediately come out, point out that Obama has flip-flopped on this issue, but agree to take Obama at his word - that the system is broken. Then announce that in the spirit of fair play, and since Obama backed out of their public finance agreement first, then he will back out as well.

And let Obama and the Democrats chew on that for a while.

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