-Caveat Lector- <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/"> </A> -Cui Bono?- John McCain's Campaign Finance "Reform" Isn't Constitutional Why 38 Senators Support George W. Bush and Don't Want McCain in the White House By: Mary Mostert, Analyst, Original Sources (www.originalsources.com) February 17, 2000 With only two days to go before the South Carolina primary, pollster John Zogby reports that Texas Governor George W. Bush leads Arizona Senator John McCain by 43.4% to 39.6%.. Former Ambassador Alan Keyes polled 4.3% and 12.7% are Undecided in polls taken Monday and Tuesday. On February 3rd, Zogby showed John McCain ahead of Texas Gov. George W. Bush 44% to 39.3%, while the three other Republican candidates barely scored -- Ambassador Alan Keyes 2.1%, Publisher Steve Forbes 1.7% and former Reagan administration official Gary Bauer 1.2%, with 11.7% Undecided. Yesterday's polling figures were gathered before Tuesday night's debate and before Gary Bauer dropped out of the race and endorsed John McCain., and the error margin of the poll is plus or minus 4% , which indicates that the race is in a dead heat, swinging first to McCain and then to Bush. The large undecided vote could determine the final outcome. If the South Carolina Republican primary was limited to Republicans, there would be no contest, according to Zogby's figures. : "Bush leads 2-1 among Republicans (58.8%-28.9%), while McCain is ahead among both Independents (61.7%-23.2%) and Democrats (50.6%-12.5%). The sample includes nearly 40% who are identified as either Democrat or Independent." Forty percent are either Democrats or Independents? That means a whole lot of Democrats are not voting in their own primary. In spite of Gary Bauer's endorsement of McCain, it appears that much of the electorate does not see John McCain as a "conservative," even though McCain identifies himself as a conservative and George W. Bush told Larry King on the debate the other night that HE considered John McCain a conservative. Zogby reported yesterday that "Bush holds a very heavy lead among both Conservatives (51.3%-32.1%) and Very Conservative voters (61.9%-19.2%) while McCain has substantial leads among Moderates (55.5%-30.9%) and Liberals. McCain leads among voters who have served or lived in households where someone has served in the Armed Forces (50.2%-33.2%). Bush leads among Born-Again Christians (50.1%-34.3%). McCain leads among first time Republican primary voters (48.9%-32.3%) and among those who said that they had voted in a Democratic primary in the past (48.9%-27.6%). What is the issue that prompts the general public to consider John McCain a moderate? It appears to be two fold. First, McCain is seen as a "centrist" candidate who can get votes from Independents and Democrats. If McCain is now dubbed a "centrist," the media has reported that George Bush is "moving to the right." Gary Bauer's surprise endorsement of McCain is a last minute effort to bring religious conservatives into the McCain camp. The second, and probably the most important identity that McCain has among Democrats and Independents is his co-endorsement of the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform act. Senator Feingold, one of the most liberal senators in the Senate, and McCain have both gotten a lot of mileage out of their "Campaign Finance Reform" package, even though it appears to totally undermine the First Amendment and would probably be declared unconstitutional after a few votes, as were provisions of the post-Watergate "campaign finance reforms" of the 1970s. The constitutionality of key provisions of the 1974 Campaign Finance Reform amendments was immediately challenged in a lawsuit filed by Senator James L. Buckley (Conservative Party, New York) and Eugene McCarthy (former Democratic Senator from Minnesota) against the Secretary of the Senate, Francis R. Valeo. The Supreme Court handed down its ruling on January 30, 1976. Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 (1976)." In its decision, the Court upheld contribution limits because they served the government's interest in safeguarding the integrity of elections by" preventing even the appearance of corruption of public officials." However, the Court overturned the expenditure limits, stating: 'It is clear that a primary effect of these expenditure limitations is to restrict the quantity of campaign speech by individuals, groups and candidates. The restrictions...limit political expression at the core of our electoral process and of First Amendment freedoms.' Acknowledging that both contribution and spending limits had First Amendment implications, the Court stated that the new law's "expenditure ceilings impose significantly more severe restrictions on protected freedoms of political expression and association than do its limitations on financial contributions." The Court seemed to indicate, however, that the expenditure limits placed on publicly funded candidates were constitutional because Presidential candidates were free to disregard the limits if they chose to reject public financing; later, the Court affirmed this ruling in Republican National Committee v. FEC. 445 U.S. 955 (1980)." This decision has a very powerful impact on the current primary because George W. Bush has rejected public financing. John McCain, on the other hand, has not and therefore is legally bound to abide by the 1974 provisions. Campaign finance reform is not a new issue in America. In fact, every current notion of campaign finance reform has already been considered and some of them instituted and later abandoned in America's political history. The first paragraph of the McCain-Feingold bill states: `(1) IN GENERAL- A national committee of a political party (including a national congressional campaign committee of a political party) and any officers or agents of such party committees, shall not solicit, receive, or direct to another person a contribution, donation, or transfer of funds, or spend any funds, that are not subject to the limitations, prohibitions, and reporting requirements of this Act., This appears to be an attempt to get around the Supreme Court decision which declared the 1974 Amendments to the Campaign Finance Law of 1971 unconstitutional. The court has held that contributing money to a political candidate is a form of speech, since that contribution allows the candidates to purchase newspaper, radio or TV advertising. Limiting the money to purchase the ads naturally limits the candidate's ability to get his r her message out. Ironically, it is John McCain who has been hoisted on his own petard in this situation. Even though he possibly could raise enough money in the primary to compete with George W. Bush, he has opted to take tax funds, rather than rely on the donations of supporters, thereby limiting the amount of money he can spend. McCain's current situation also is a great example of the danger and absurdity of tax-financed political campaigns. Because of the change in public interest, cause by McCain winning the New Hampshire primary, a lot more money is really needed by both candidates to get their messages across to the public. George W. is able to raise needed money for the rest of the 50 states. John McCain is limited by his decision to accept the "free" money. He gave away fundamental rights to communicate for a mess of pottage. While there has been a lot of discussion in recent days about whether or not John McCain was truthful about his experiences as a prisoner of war, at this late date there is no way anyone can actually determine who is telling the truth and who isn't. We know, because of independent witnesses, that John McCain WAS shot down over Hanoi and other Americans later did meet him in one or another Prisoner of War camp in Vietnam. He was in a Hanoi hospital for the first six months of his captivity, and there are no witnesses to his stories of abuse and torture which led to his decision to give information to his captors. At this point in history, it isn't very productive to debate what happened during those six weeks. No one can either corroborate his version of the story or prove it wrong. However, it is possible to examine and determine McCain's honesty and integrity based on his behavior and his work as a U.S. Senator. And, since much of his sudden popularity, especially with Democrats and Independents actually stems from his championing of the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Act, a close investigation of his actions involving campaign finance and the financing of his own campaign now is a legitimate area of inquiry. One of the best descriptions of the impact of the McCain-Feingold bill appeared in the Rocky Mountain News, Tues., Sept. 21, 1999, in Denver, Colorado in an editorial entitled: "Free Speech vs. `Reform': Suppose that you were upset about potholes in a neighborhood street. Imagine that you started cranking out leaflets to win the support of fellow residents and maybe even to get them to consider the issue in the next city council election. And now suppose that the city government told you to cut it out on the ground that the amount of money you were spending on those leaflets was corrupting politicians. You just might suspect someone was messing with your freedom of speech, right? Your assessment would be correct. And it would be equally correct to believe that a campaign finance bill passed recently in the House of Representatives would abridge the First Amendment guarantees of untethered political expression. The bill is aimed principally at money that's given to political parties for reasons other than directly influencing a candidate's election or defeat at the polls. The legislation would ban those kinds of unregulated contributions, and the cheers have been deafening. But why is it that applauding throngs are so eager to quell free speech? Can't they see that it's as much an abuse of power to stop a rich donor from piling money at the door of the Republicans or the Democrats as it would be to limit the distribution of leaflets by a neighborhood activist? The Senate sponsors of a similar bill reportedly plan to drop one particularly obnoxious provision of the House legislation--regulating the content of issue advertisements that comment on candidates--but the proposed law remains an anti-democratic restriction of political discussion. This so-called reform may be stopped this year by filibuster. It ought to be stopped because members of Congress recognize that the best cure the current system's many ills is more complete disclosure of contributors and even more freedom for direct campaign contributions, not less liberty for all of us. Very few Americans actually understand the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Bill, which is why I have posted it in full in another article today. What John McCain HAS done, and he has done it in full view of an admiring media and a supportive Democratic party leadership, is to brand every Senator who has objected to passage of his bill, and most of those objecting are Republicans, as part of a "triad" of "corruption" resulting from Campaign contributions which, he claims, has led to "pork barrel spending" on the part of those Senators. He has presented himself to the public as the war hero defender of truth, justice and the American way or, as he said in the Larry King Show debate, as "Luke Skywalker." He has successfully, with the help of the media, portrayed the rest of the Senate as "Washington insiders" corrupted by "soft money." And that, folks, explains why 38 Senators are supporting George W. Bush and why he may not even carry his own state of Arizona in the Presidential race. The real issue isn't what did or didn't happen 25 years ago in Vietnam. It's how just how much honesty and integrity has John McCain shown in his drive to force his colleagues in the Senate to accept a Campaign Finance bill which they believe is an attack on the First Amendment and which it appears McCain is trying to force through the Senate with unprincipled and unsubstantiated attacks on fellow Senators. To comment: [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.reagan.com/HotTopics.main/document-2.18.2000.0.html Bard Blood Money Financing Bush Bid? http://www.spotlight.org/Newsbureau/Prisoner/Eletter/eletter.html <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soap-boxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. 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