Hypocritical McCain executes yet another "flip-flop"- on signature issue!

[flpoljunkie]

http://www.hillnews.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/040606/news2.html

McCain, House GOP strike a BCRA deal
By Alexander Bolton

House Republican leaders have struck a deal with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to eliminate restrictions on coordination between national parties and federal candidates, a change in the law that would be of great benefit to the winner of the 2008 GOP presidential primary, according to congressional sources.

Republican and Democratic campaign-finance experts alike believe the change would be a boon to McCain’s campaign, if he wins his party’s nomination in three years, an outcome that political handicappers are beginning to view as a real possibility.

The House voted yesterday to attach legislation eliminating the coordination restriction to a bill limiting the activities of the soft-money groups known as 527s. The groups are named after a section of the tax code and are allowed to raise and spend unlimited amounts of money on political activities. The resulting campaign-finance package narrowly passed the House yesterday evening.

Proponents of campaign-finance regulation such as McCain, Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) and their ally Fred Wertheimer of Democracy 21 consider the lack of limits on 527s a loophole, and closing it has been a top priority for them. But eliminating limits on party expenditures coordinated with candidates has been fiercely contested in the courts for nearly 15 years.

[Greeby]

1. Like Jon Stewart said

"The Straight-Talk Express has been rerouted through Bullshit town" :evilgrin:

[zbdent]

3. The straight-talk express looks a whole lot like a road map

for the road to Hana . . .

[napi21]

2. Maybe I'm missing something here, but I don't see this as an

insurmountable problem. It sounds like they want to put the same donation limits on 527's as there are on other contributions (which is $2,000 per person if I remember). First, they always seem to be referring to the Dean campaign's success in raising some much $$ so quickly. Dean did so that, but I thought almost all of that was via $25-$100 individual donations, because most of Deans suporters were the you & I folks who don't HAAVE the $$ to give $10,000 at a time. The same regulation of donations of all kinds won't change that!

[flpoljunkie]

4. Flip-flop not about 527's. Read more below.

The limit on coordination between federal parties and candidates dates from the 1970s. Repealing it would allow parties to spend unlimited amounts from their coffers to pay for candidates’ campaign expenses. For example, parties could pay unlimited amounts for candidates’ staff salaries, utility bills and campaign ads. The costs, however, would have to be paid for with so-called hard money, raised by the parties in limited increments, the only funds federal parties have been allowed to raise since 2002.

Eliminating the coordination limit would be especially helpful to the Republican presidential nominee in 2008 because the Republican National Committee (RNC) has a huge fundraising advantage over its Democratic counterpart, greater than the disparity between the Republican and Democratic fundraising committees affiliated with the Senate and House.

The RNC has raised $130 million so far this election cycle and has nearly $41 million in its war chest. The Democratic National Committee (DNC) has raised $67 million since the beginning of 2005 and has only about $9 million in the bank.

“It’s obviously going to help the Republicans more — they have more money — unless the Democrats can play catch-up,” said Ken Gross, a campaign-finance expert with the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom.

http://www.hillnews.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/040606/news2.html

[napi21]

5. I understad all that, but couldn't the Dems just have the grassroots

just donate directly to the DNC?

As for the Pubs always having more $$, that's a given! They always will because most wealthy people are Pubs!

[flpoljunkie]

6. DNC is getting more hard money contributions from folks than in the past

and are catching up with Rethugs on this aspect of fund raising.