“The excitement underpinning Senator Barack Obama’s campaign rests considerably on his evocative vows to depart from self-interested politics. Unfortunately, Mr. Obama has come up short of that standard with his decision to reject public spending limitations and opt instead for unlimited private financing in the general election.”
-New York Times Editorial 6/20/08
WRONG!
Michael Kinsley’s famous rule that “the scandal isn’t what’s illegal, it’s what’s legal“, now has “Gatemouth’s converse“: “the ideal imperfectly replicated in a reform may be preferable to the status quo (or status quo ante), but it is not to be mistaken for the ideal itself.”
Take public financing of presidential campaigns, a reform enacted in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal. The idea was to eliminate many evils: the nefarious influence of special interest pay for play money; the nefarious influence of big donors with disproportionate influence; dirty tricks, often untraceable to their source; etc., etc.
The reality was a bit different. Primary season, even with matching donations, was still an orgy of special interest bundling, and the special interests found ways to contribute in-kind which alluded any violation of the rules. Most importantly, thank to the wonders of the First Amendment, both the rich and poor shared the same right to spend unlimited amounts of their own funds to propagate their own views, as long as they did so “independently” of the campaigns. 527s take such costly free speech to entirely new levels of disgust, as the public gets taken for a ride on a battalion of swift boats.
Nonetheless, efforts for reform take on a talismanic quality among good government types. “Reform” efforts like “McCain-Feingold” become mantras to be chanted by do-gooders until they fall into a trance under its mystical hypnotic spell, even conveying the magical illusion of integrity and independence upon its co-author, once know for his role in a major Senate scandal, and a man whose own campaign might better be renamed “The K Street Project”, as he rides freely upon the loamy loams of the friendly skies of campaign planes and campaign staff supplied by all of DC’s usual suspects.
Meanwhile, liberals who should know better go into apoplectic shock when they come out of the mantra induced trance to discover that printing a campaign palm card for candidates endorsed by their political club may result in the commission of a felony. Nonetheless, the Talisman remains unassailable, as if it actually embodies the ideals supposedly advanced by its enactment.
Let’s get back to the unattainable ideal for which public financing is supposed to substitute.
The idea would be a campaign financed almost entirely by small donations, none provided by any lobby or special interest. Moreover, in the ideal, not only the candidate, but the candidate’s party would forswear entirely contributions from such sources. Finally, the candidate would publicly discourage his supporters from contributing to 527s set up to work in the interest of his campaign.
Of course, this ideal was impossible to enact into law, not least because of problems with constitutionality; but we can dream, can’t we?
Well, the dream has come true. Barack Obama is raising money from small voluntary donations, rather than lobbyists or the taxpayers. He’s barred the DNC from accepting lobbyist money either; this may not be wise, but it is inspiring. Finally, he’s asked his contributors to give money to his campaign rather than those evil 527s.
The unlikely appearance of the ideal, rather than the pantomime horse made in its image, has so spooked some good government types that they are screaming for the Talisman instead. This is like asking for Pat Boone when you can have Little Richard.
The New York Times is too infatuated with white bucks (there's a pun in there somewhere); to this there is only one appropriate response:
WHOMP BOP A LOOMA BA BOP BAM BOOM!