Obama turns down public financing

Obama has announced that he will not be accepting public financing for the general election. Good for him. I'm all for that.

Senator Barack Obama announced Thursday that he would not participate in the public financing system for presidential campaigns. He argued that the system had collapsed, and would put him at a disadvantage running against Senator John McCain, his likely Republican opponent.

Accepting public financing would have meant limiting himself to $84 million. That's not much. He's raised $250 million so far. I would much rather see my candidate going into battle with heavy artillery.

Speaking of artillery, Kos, a former artillery officer in the Army, makes a crucial distinction about money in politics:

I haven't been shy about my general opposition to the current campaign finance regime. The so-called "reformers" that want to clean up politics have so lost sight of the original problem, that they think money is the problem in politics, when in fact it is the unwarranted influence of big money.

If you give $20 to a candidate, not a problem. If big money donor bundles $100,000 in exchange for favorable tax breaks for his or her industry, that's not okay.

I always find it odd that some people want to "take money out of politics." You can't take money out of politics. That would be like taking food out of restaurants, or taking the fun out of Disney World. Politics is about money. Politics is about resolving conflicts of interest, and many conflicts of interest revolve around money. It is not possible to eliminate the role of money in politics. Talking about doing that is an exercise is self-delusion. The best that you can do is regulate it as best as possible. I'm all in favor of transparency when it comes to money in politics. Completely eliminating it, however, is just wishful thinking.

One problem with Clinton's fundraising

Hillary Clinton has lent her campaign $11.4 million dollars. That's a chunk of change. She and Bill have made lots of money since they left the White House in 2001. He has made most of it, since she has a day job. Part of that $11.4 million was from his earnings. Not a big deal, right? After all, they're married, so whether or not they share finances is their decision. Except that in the world of campaign finance, lending yourself or your spouse money can get tricky fast. Bill Clinton made his money by giving speeches to organizations with lots of money, mostly corporations. We can reasonably assume that all of those groups have some kind of interest in influencing legislation in the United States Congress. Which legislation, of course, would be signed or vetoed by the president, which Hillary is trying to become. So those corporations are sort of funneling money to the Clinton campaign. McClatchy has the lowdown:

"the Clintons have effectively bypassed campaign finance reform in a manner that's ingenious — using Bill Clinton effectively as a front for the fundraising," said Lawrence Jacobs, a University of Minnesota political science professor.
. . .

that bypasses campaign finance (rules), bypasses public disclosure and bypasses the limits placed on those contributions," [Jacobs] said.

I don't begrudge Bill Clinton his ability to make money. I have no problem with him helping out his wife. But as far as advancing a progressive agenda, this does raise some questions. Obama has raised huge amounts of money from the grassroots; it is to them, therefore, that he owes his allegiance. But when push comes to shove, it is large corporations who have Hillary's back.

Obama shouldn't pay Hillary's debts

One of the ideas floating around since it became clear that Hillary won't make it is this very strange notion that, if she drops out now, Obama will help pay down her campaign debts.

Seriously?

Apparently this was the practice in the past - the winner helps out the loser. OK, I could see that, if the loser was, for example, a regular Senator who didn't have an extra source of income. And I could see this happening if it's a close race and the loser stayed in while they had a realistic chance. Money on a campaign is a weird thing, because everything is on a different schedule. The dominant item is the primary schedule. Then there's the fundraising schedule, and the bill payment schedule. None of those are really in sync. Deciding to run for office, particularly president, is a risky business. You have to order things like lawn signs and office furniture before you are absolutely sure you have the money to pay for them; that's the nature of the beast. It's basically a startup business. And your vendors take a certain risk selling you things, because you don't really have a revenue stream. But still, they're usually small business people, and many of them want to support your campaign. So you really need to pay them back.

So I can see a winning campaign in a primary helping out a loser. The winner wants the loser to be able to help them out during the general election, everybody wants the vendors to be happy, etc. My guess is that it's usually not a huge amount of money. And it probably happens behind the scenes. If most of the donors are big money people, they might have donated to both campaigns, and they're probably the kind of people who can write large checks and not worry if their money goes to another candidate.

Almost none of that applies this time. Yes, the winner, Obama, wants to maintain cordial relations with the loser, Hillary. But it is a huge amount of money. Many of Obama's donors are very sensitive about their donations NOT going to Hilary.

Hillary made several decisions that are relevant to this dilemma that she finds herself in. She made the decision to loan herself $5 million way back at the beginning of this primary season. She hired people who mismanaged her campaign finances. She stayed in it long after it became obvious that Obama would be the nominee. I have no sympathy whatsoever for her financial difficulties. I've been considering donating money to the campaign again, before the end of the primary season, and making an appeal to my friends and family to do the same. I won't do either if Obama helps out Clinton with her campaign debt. Let's be VERY clear on that one.