Karl Rove: McCain Couldn't Compete With Obama's [Crooked] Money

The Wall Street Journal ^ | DECEMBER 3, 2008, 11:28 P.M. ET | Karl Rove

[Antoninus]

The lesson for this election is: Collecting huge amounts of campaign money is only bad when a Republican does it.

[nathanbedford]

If the FEC follows up with a report on this, it should make for interesting reading.

Interesting reading? Perhaps, but only of passing interest. The FEC is utterly feckless especially when it comes to policing Democrats and any implication to the contrary is rubbish. It's Karl Rove playing word games here? Is this a circumlocution to avoid saying what is real?

And even liberals, who have long denied that money is political speech that should be protected by First Amendment, may now be forced to admit that their donations to Mr. Obama were a form of political expression

Democrats, "forced" to "admit" anything? Now Rove is being utterly absurd. There is no entity this side of divine intervention that will force the Democrats to admit anything about anything much less their donations to Mr. Obama. Who is going to hold real hearings, the FEC? One might as well expect Henry Waxman to conduct such hearings.

Cold as it is, the irony of McCain being hoisted on his own creation does provide some comfort.

[Cicero]

McCain was a lousy candidate, constantly reaching across the aisle while he took it on the chin, and never attacking Obama where he was weakest. If not for Sarah Palin, he would have lost by a landslide.

I voted for him, and I kept by lips tightly zipped and spoke as well as I could about him after he nominated Sarah, because that indicated that maybe he had finally woken up. His acceptance speech was excellent, too. But it was all downhill again from there.

I agreed with Rush. Better to drag McCain across the finish line and then fight with him in the White House than to elect a Commie-Muslim foreigner. But he failed us in the debates and in the crunch, and even muzzled his supporters from telling the truth about Obama.

[Bob Eimiller]

Massive MONEY Source...? George Soros? ..... Just wondering.

[Godsgirl]

My guess is that he received ALOT of illegal $. People in the middle east and people in low places that wanted to further his cause.

[GVnana]

Call me delusional! Call Barack Obama POTUS.

[Troll_House_Cookies]

“McCain was not a bad candidate.”

Stopped reading after that, sorry. Thought a mistake of that magnitude discredits any logic that follows it.

[iopscusa]

Bingo...AGR, ‘to get money, you have the run a candidate that excites those with money to give’. I voted for but did not contribute $’s to McCain...Gov. Palin as POTUS candidate OTOH would pull many $’s.

[Cicero]

The irony is that the FEC will examine McCain’s donations with a fine-tooth comb because he got public money. But Obama’s fund-raising will NOT be examined, because he did not take public funding.

Thank McCain-Feingold for that.

To put the icing on the cake, the FEC has lacked a quorum since last year, because Harry Reid blocked hearings on Bush’s replacement appointments. So they can’t act legally, anyway, until Obama gets into office and stuffs it with his own stooges. Few people know this because as usual the Republicans and Bush just lay down and took it.

[Antoninus]

McCain was not a bad candidate.

Actually, he was the guy with his name on the last campaign finance swindle that became law. He then voluntarily hamstrung himself by following the rules while his opponent lied and brazenly broke the rules.

In retrospect, that sounds like a bad candidate to me.

[SmokingJoe]

“and no money to push a message beyond his voting base”

And who's fault is that?
McCain's. His McCain-Feingold saw to that. McCain was hoisted with his own petard. Serves him right.

[Cicero]

Most of the money probably came from Arab sheikhs and the Saudis, is my guess.

[okie01]

McCain had the burden of defeating an "historic candidate" solidly backed by the media, and no money to push a message beyond his voting base.

McCain didn't even get all of his voting base to the polls. His popular vote total fell 4 million short of Bush's in 2004.

[AmericanGirlRising]

Agreed in your theory. However, my argument is to fight that or any other money is to provide a candidate that will open wallets.

Even with the extraordinary size of Soros-Obamas coffers, they still only won 52/48 with electoral college voting in BG states close.

[smokingfrog]

Duh!

[sarasota]

I think the results of the election proved that this is, in fact, the case.

[rod1]

I suspect you will not hear much in the way of real concern expressed on the _BS networks etc. This huge funny money applied to media advertising is about the only thing that is keeping the MSM out of bankruptcy.

[alloysteel]

The “prepaid” debit cards, which were probably purchased in huge quantities by some money repository people who could no longer legally contribute in their own name, even though they are “untraceable”, should have some kind of recorded serial number under which the account was accessed, and this information is, or should be, accessible. Large numbers of these cards, in consecutive numbers, purchased simultaneously, HAVE to be leaving some set of prints, in an electronic trail somewhere.

[xmission]

I have to ask myself why the hell McCain wanted to be president so bad.

[Dapper 26]

Facts will probably show that Hussein and his Chicago like campaign has violated every campaign spending law on the books. So what? Nobody, no system or legal entity in the US will do anything about it. Hussein will get a free pass to do anything he wants. Our court system is severely compromised, elected Republicans have been emasculated by the media and the MSM will not print one word about any Dimocrap wrongdoing. And, don’t tell me that gun sales are up 50% because Americans think guns will soon be a collector’s item!