McCain is a major problem that the Republican Party needs to deal with. He has done significant damage to the party brand, such as it is. Someone has to show him the exit door and tell him to join his pals on the other side of the isle. The rest of the RINOs will quickly get the message.
“McCain is a major problem that the Republican Party needs to deal with. He has done significant damage to the party brand, such as it is. Someone has to show him the exit door and tell him to join his pals on the other side of the isle. “
Politics is about money. McCain and his RINO collaborators have big money supporters who fund the campaigns and provide other perks (rides on corporate jets, lucrative speaking engagements at conferences, employment for family members). The power these politicians enjoy the product of the money they receive. Cut off the money and you eliminate the power.
Notice how in the age of Obama there is no longer any cry for campaign finance reform. Obama trashed the campaign finance system in 2008 by refusing federal matching funds, after he had maneuvered McCain into accepting matching funds by promising that if the Republican candidate accepted matching funds he would. By not accepting matching funds Obama could outspend McCain over 3 to 1. The mainstream media and the progressive organizationa pushing stricter campaign finance rules were silent. Had it been the 2004 campaign with Kerry taking matching funds and Bush going with unlimited private contributions, the media and the Democrats would have screamed and it would have been a major campaign issue. Shame on McCain in 2008 for not making it an issue.
True campaign finance reform would accommodate free speech as well as the need for transparency (i.e. allow the public to know who owns their politicians). It would be simple and easy to administer. Here’s a proposal:
1) No foreign contributions, period.
2) Any US citizen, corporation, or organization registered with the IRS (profit or non-profit) can give as much as it wishes to any politician or political organization.
3) The politician or political organization must post the name of the contributor, the address of the contributor, and the amount of the donation within 24 hours of receipt on a website accessible to the public for the lifetime of the politician or organization. Upon the death of the politician, or disbanding of the organization, the contributor records must be turned over to the National Archives for permanent access to the public.
4) All donations must be reported no matter how small. If a corporation gives the candidate’s wife a ride on a corporate jet, or a sign company provides yard signs at no cost, the monetary value of these in-kind contributions must also be reported.
5) From the moment a politician becomes an active candidate for office, he or she must post on on a public website all sources of income whether in money, gifts, or services. This includes income tax returns for the three years prior to declaring his/her candidacy.
6) All public and private organizations contributing money or in-kind services to politicians or political organizations must report all such contributions, at the time they are made, on the organization’s website or, if the organization doesn’t have a website, on a website created and administered by the FEC for the purpose of reporting these contributions. Whether the organization is Exxon, Planned Parenthood, the Sierra Club, or a corporate PAC, the public is entitled to know who the politicians representing them are indebted to.
We have reached the point in our history where our candidates are no longer prominent citizens in the community interested in representing their constituents. We now have hired hands representing monied special interests. While we should not be restricting the free speech of donors by restricting the amount of contributions, it is in the public interest for the voters to know who really owns the candidates they are choosing. It might be that if the voters knew who owned McCain, they would have chosen differently in the last primary.