John McCain has some problems to deal with.
First, his latest FEC report shows his campaign violating the $54 million fundraising limit set by campaign finance laws. McCain opted into the public financing system months ago; by exceeding this limit, he has broken the very campaign finance reform laws he shepherded through Congress in 2002.
Then again, this isn’t unexpected. On this issue, McCain declared that the laws don’t apply to him–that he’s no longer restricted by public financing limits. Unfortunately for him, this isn’t his decision to make–McCain opted into public financing (receiving benefits such as money and ballot access) and he can’t pull out until and unless the FEC agrees.
A month ago, the FEC sent McCain a letter:
The nation’s top federal election official told Sen. John McCain yesterday that he cannot immediately withdraw from the presidential public financing system as he had requested, a decision that threatens to dramatically restrict his spending until the general election campaign begins in the fall.
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The implications of that could be dramatic. Last year, when McCain’s campaign was starved for cash, he applied to join the financing system to gain access to millions of dollars in federal matching money. He was also permitted to use his FEC certification to bypass the time-consuming process of gathering signatures to get his name on the ballot in several states, including Ohio
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By signing up for matching money, McCain agreed to adhere to strict state-by-state spending limits and an overall limit on spending of $54 million for the primary season, which lasts until the party’s nominating convention in September. The general election has a separate public financing arrangement.
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Knowingly violating the spending limit is a criminal offense that could put McCain at risk of stiff fines and up to five years in prison.
In response to John McCain breaking campaign finance laws, the DNC filed an FEC complaint. In addition, a number of progressive bloggers also filed an FEC complaint; they’re coupling it with a petition, which you can sign here.
Second, McCain gave what was billed as a major foreign policy speech yesterday. Unfortunately for him, it was light on specifics, and the policies he actually proposed were more than lacking.
McCain echoed George W. Bush’s rhetoric on Iraq, casting the war as a choice between staying the course and winning or ‘cutting and running’ and surrendering to Al-Qaeda. Middle East expert and former Ambassador Marc Ginsberg had this to say about McCain’s false choice:
The trouble with this set up is that McCain’s core premise is dead wrong. By our own senior commanders’ accounts, Al Qaeda is but a minor player in Iraq, and there is no way the U.S. presence, surge or not, that will keep a lid on sectarian tensions. Just look at what is going on in Iraq at the very tragic milestone of 4,000 Americans killed: the worst sectarian violence in months has broken out with hundreds of lives lost despite a McCain’s surge that he continues to tout as the fire extinguisher that will stop sectarian strife from igniting once again.
McCain proposed forming a ‘League of Democracies,’ a new international institution that would provide political cover for whatever disastrous foreign policies a McCain presidency would come up with.
But the League of Democracies would be the ‘Coalition of the Willing’ by a different name, made up of countries trying to curry our favor by rubber-stamping our foreign policy decisions, no matter how idiotic or ill-fated. In other words, it would be the exact kind of wrong-headed ad-hoc alliance that helped get us into Iraq in the first place.
In addition, the League of Democracies would be a formalized version of Bush’s cowboy diplomacy–it would institutionalize our current foreign policy, which ignores and marginalizes any country that doesn’t follow our foreign policy directives. Much like the Bush presidency, this plan will both galvanize and unite America’s enemies, creating a dangerous, unstable bi-polar world.
Ambassador Ginsberg says it best:
What is so strikingly and inherently wrong with McCain’s world vision is that America’s global leadership will not be restored by ignoring adversaries that, left to their own devices, may further challenge and undermine America’s national security.
If this is the kind of foreign policy insight 25 years in Congress gets you, then I’d say Barack Obama has a point.
Third, McCain’s speech invoked this gem from his childhood:
When I was five years old, a car pulled up in front of our house in New London, Connecticut, and a Navy officer rolled down the window, and shouted at my father that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor.
Good God, John McCain remembers Pearl Harbor. Nothing like reminding the American people that, if elected, you would be the oldest President in American history.
Along those lines, take this quote from a McCain staffer:
If America is looking for a second term of the Jimmy Carter Administration of high taxes at home and weakness abroad vote Obama. I doubt they are.
Looking over the 2000 census numbers, roughly half of the voting-age population in the United States is 40 years or younger. If you’re 40 today, that means you were born in 1967 or 1968; since Jimmy Carter left office in January, 1977, it stands to reason that if you’re 40 or below, you probably don’t remember very much about the Carter administration.
So the McCain campaign is invoking the Carter administration, despite the fact that nearly half of America’s voting-age population aren’t old enough to even remember it. (Hell, I wasn’t even born until the Reagan years)
Of course, there’s a good way to re-work that quote to make it more recent…and more accurate:
If America is looking for a second term of the [George Bush] Administration of [economic devastation] at home and weakness abroad vote [McCain]. I doubt they are.
There. Perfect.