I knew I was in trouble when a good friend of mine asked what I thought about this story and I discovered I didn’t have a clue. Campaign finance reform is kinda like European economics or the NFL draft to me. It’s there, it’s probably important, but I don’t understand it as well as I should.
So when the question of whether I agreed or disagreed with Obama’s choice to turn down public financing, I had to do some reading.
My gut instinct at hearing this was “cool, Obama’s got a bazillion supporters, let them finance his campaign”. Then I was bemused to find out that, previously, Obama had pledged to take public financing in the general election to make sure he and McCain were going to “abide by the same set of rules”, coming within a hair’s breadth from saying he was going to accept public financing.
Now he’s turned his back on it and I’ve got the unenviable task of figuring out why in the world he would have done that. On the surface it sounds pretty bad: he bypasses the spending limit and, given Obama’s proclivity for raising money by the zillions, so he can take his army of donors and basically outspend McCain and buy himself the Oval Office.
Hold on, though. That doesn’t really mesh with Obama’s general image and it seems more than a little peculiar that he’d take the blatantly self-serving path. That just hasn’t been how he runs things.
The reasoning behind the public financing law makes perfect sense: level the playing field by eliminating private donors and cap everyone’s spending. Everyone’s basically on the same page, no one can use clout with the wealthy to blow the other guy outta the water. It comes down to, literally, a battle of ideals and good ol’ fashioned politicking.
That’s all well and good until we remind ourselves that total campaign spending in 2004 blew out all the old records. How does that work, if everyone’s on a level playing field?
In this case, we get to deal with a wild card in the form of the “independent political group”. Remember all those awesome Swiftboat ads? Those things didn’t come cheap. IPG’s aren’t subject to finance laws because technically speaking they aren’t part of the campaign. There are a few regulations, namely to specify that they are indeed their own group and not speaking on behalf of a candidate, but that doesn’t eliminate them.
So what we’d end up with is candidates spending however much they have, but then a whole slew of “independent groups” throwing up ads, starting rallies, and otherwise campaigning for or against one of the candidates. De facto, they are a part of one campaign, but getting around the finance regulations. Bush’s hands weren’t on the Swifties, so they were free to do whatever the heck they wanted and spend all they got. This is probably why Obama’s calling the current system “broken”.
There’s more to confound things, though. Public financing in the general election eliminates all contributions. Period. If you want to give John McCain $10 to buy a new tie because dammit that old one is just ugly as sin, tough nuggets. The election is publicly funded and that’s all there is to it.
Normally that would be a good thing because, as I said, it prevents a candidate from tapping into his too-rich-for-their-own-good connections to toss a few hundred million into his war chest and basically drown out the other guy.
Obama, however, is in a strange position. His election was not funded by big-time donors and corporations. Sure, they were a part, but the amazing thing of the Obama campaign is that he managed to get absolutely insane amounts of small donations. Nothing like the Ron Paul phenomenon, but certainly a far cry from “Hey, buddy, how’s the business doing? Yeah, couldja lend me another six mil? I’m short.”
So in a system that completely eliminates private donations, Obama’s going to have to effectively shunt off his grassroots foundation. Let’s face it, Barack Obama did not come into this the way a McCain or Clinton did. He was not presumptive, he did not come flying out with stockpiles of big-time donors eager to push him along. He was an underdog that, through help from “the people”, slowly managed to make waves.
Heading back over to Wikipedia, we can peep at some stats about campaign finance in the USA. Here’s the tidbit that jumped out at me:
No major party has turned down government funds for the general election since the program was launched in 1976, until Senator Barack Obama did so in 2008
Did you get that? No one. Obama would be the first candidate in 32 years to turn down public funds of his campaign. This isn’t something that the rich people do when they feel like using their own money instead. Heck, this isn’t something that the rich people do at all. Obama is bucking a trend that’s been going on longer than many of his supporters have been alive, and one that both parties were cool with.
I was watching MSNBC on this topic and one of the talking heads pointed out that this “isn’t good for Obama’s image as the candidate of reform and change.” Maybe I’m thick, but to me when a candidate breaks a 32-year tradition, that seems like a whole lotta change. Whether it’s a good idea is something else entirely.
Personally, I’m still unsure. Convince me one way or the other. The friend that asked me this pointed out that a good gauge of whether something is ethical is what I’d think if the other guy was doing it. Would I approve of McCain’s choice? I still don’t know yet.
Hanlon\'s Razor 