Pushing the Myth on Campaign Finance Reform
Ah, Washington Post, how you do completely miss the entire point. Today, in an article about John McCain and his campaign fianance reform laws, this is how the Post explains the opposition.
The McCain-Feingold legislation, known formally as the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, infuriated conservative Republicans because of its ban on “soft money” — unlimited contributions from wealthy donors that were funneled through political parties and into the hands of political candidates. The law also limited the ability of special interest groups to circumvent contribution limits by buying their own ads on behalf of candidates or against their opponents.
While McCain and other advocates considered the ban crucial, opponents contended that the measure trampled on free speech.
That is, by the way, really, really misleading. Conservatives don’t care a fig about soft money or hard money, except to say that you could replace the words “soft money” with “freedom of speech” and “special interest groups” with “you and your friends and neighbors”. Those are the terms that the law uses and, in a shocking coincidence, exactly the phrases that Democratc sling around to criticize Republicans in the media.
See, here’s the thing. We conservatives believe that if you want to spend your entire fortune by giving it to one candidate directly, that’s your right. Furthermore, we think that if you and your buddies want to scrape together some cash and put an ad on your local TV station that criticizes a candidate, that’s your right, too.
John McCain doesn’t believe that. Nor, apparently, does the Washington Post. The paper is willing to do some fancy dancing to make you think that conservatives only want to lift the law to help out the millionaires and “special interests”. That’s a Democratic myth that the MSM doesn’t mind helping them push onto us a little more. Do consider, though, that the Republicans aren’t the ones who lead the way every election in big-dollar donations from rich people.
The fact is that you now have fewer rights because of this law. You can not spend your money as you please. You can not speak in support of or opposition to candidates as you please. The folks who want that to change are, largely, conservative. That is an inconvenient tale for the Post to tell, so it blurred up the language and used a couple hot phrases that their buddies on the left like to use so you’d think otherwise.
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Category: Oh, THAT liberal media., The 2008 Horse Race
