You might think the 2008 presidential race as it has evolved would be good news for devoted advocates of public financing of political campaigns. After all, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are consistently on record favoring both a strengthening of the current presidential system of public financing, and moreover, an extension of public financing into congressional elections. And John McCain, of course, has long been identified as a champion of campaign finance reform.

But the past tense term “has been” now seems appropriate for McCain’s commitment to public financing of political campaigns. As the nonpartisan group Public Campaign Action Fund notes in a pointed letter to McCain, the putative Republican nominee is scrupulously avoiding any support for bipartisan public financing legislation in Congress:

As you are aware, bipartisan legislation has been introduced in the Senate to fix the presidential system of public financing, S. 2412, sponsored by Senators Russell Feingold (D-WI) and Susan Collins (R-ME), and to establish Clean Election-style public financing for Congressional races, S. 1285 sponsored by Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Arlen Specter (R-PA)….

The absence of your name among the cosponsors of these bipartisan bills is especially conspicuous given that the names of both Senators Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Barack Obama (D-IL) appear on the Feingold-Collins bill. In addition, Senator Obama is a cosponsor of the Durbin-Specter proposal, while Clinton has co-sponsored similar legislation in the past. She has said she will make passage of such a law a priority if elected.

McCain actually has a rather spotty history on public financing of political campaigns. A few years ago he supported efforts to strengthen the presidential matching-fund program, but then absented himself from later efforts. He was a big supporter of his home state’s “Clean Elections” public financing system, but as noted above, has not supported federal initiatives modeled on Arizona’s. And most notably, he’s drawn extensive criticism for “gaming” the existing presidential public financing system by using federal dollars to help leverage a loan to his campaign, and then seeking to opt out of public financing, and its spending limits, once his campaign gained steam and private contributions rolled in.

Whatever else is going on in John McCain’s mind on this topic, there’s not much question that the vociferous opposition of many conservative activists to any sort of campaign finance reform is discouraging him from championing new initiatives.

So it’s legitimate to ask whether McCain, in this area as in others, is trying to have it both ways: relying on his past reputation as a reformer and as a “maverick” in appeals to swing voters, while quietly surrendering on substance to a GOP conservative “base” that in many respects desires a third Bush-Cheney term.

At a minimum, McCain’s recent reticence on public financing deprives reformers of the opportunity to make this election a bipartisan leap forward in efforts to clean up the current system.

As Susan Milligan of the Boston Globe recently reported:

[C]ampaign finance reform advocates say they are distressed at what they see as McCain’s abandonment of the issue at a time when supporters of reform most need bipartisan backing of efforts to control the influence of money in campaigns.

Some “straight talk” from McCain on this subject clearly seems to be in order.

This entry was posted on 4.08.2008 at 9:08 am and is filed under Government Reform. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response.