WSJ: McCain Seeks Funds Despite Legal Hurdles (OUR CHANCE?)

All that legal stuff is too complicated. Simple folks will not understand it, much less attempt to read it. McCain is a war hero and that's good enough for those whose family trees do not have any branches. We just need a simple memorable slogan. I suggest this one:

I do not like that McCain man
I won't support him Sam I Am

The United States is a nation of laws, badly written and randomly enforced. - Frank Zappa

http://www.myspace.com/occasionalstringband

"The DNC lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, argues that Sen. McCain must stay within the public-financing system because he used the promise of taxpayer funds as collateral for a $4 million bank loan last year. That means he benefited from the funds, even if he didn't deposit them, the DNC says. The McCain campaign denies the funds were used as collateral."

This indicates that McCain benefited from the public financing component. What can we do on a state level to disqualify his delegates?

If he's willing to break the law to get into office, what's the chances he'll follow the law once in office?

The DNC lawsuit, it seems to me, proceeds only because they have standing due to their eventual nominee being damaged by the extra exposure McCain will enjoy going into the general election campaign -- exposure bought illegally. Interestingly, though, no Dem was directly damaged (unless McCain scored significant "hits" on them since Feb.) in the primary season. The Dems, then, probably can't demand a resolution of the issue before the nomination is a done deal -- and that certainly won't help the Ron Paul Campaign!

The candidates who WERE directly damaged due to his overspending in the primary election campaign were those whose chance at the GOP nomination were lessened by the extra exposure he illegally bought -- and by the preferential media coverage accorded him as the presumptive nominee, when he shouldn't have been in that position at all.

So ... which candidates would those be? Any GOP candidate still in the race at the time McCain broke the spending limit in February.

That is ... Ron Paul.

The Paul Campaign has every right to sue McCain, and also to ask for a court injunction to deny McCain any delegates he "earned" since breaking the spending limit ... at least until the FEC exercises its power to grant him a release from his obligation to adhere to the limit -- something that isn't going to happen before the general election. A case could also be made that he should be disqualified altogether, since nobody can say whether he could have come this far had he not broken the law (especially by "winning" delegates in states where he attained ballot status only because he accepted the spending limits).

Now, I don't really expect the Paul Campaign to do this. After all, that would burn a lot of bridges within the GOP.

But maybe those bridges aren't worth saving at the expense of having a neocon nominee. Consider: If McCain wins in November despite all of this, the GOP will henceforth be locked in neocon mode. Conservatives will have no hope of recovering their party any time soon. And if he loses, probably in part because of something like a Libertarian Barr candidacy, the GOP will still lose much -- maybe most -- of its conservative base. Indeed, the LP could, if this McCain scandal (and others) play big to voters, end up replacing the GOP altogether as a political force in America.

So maybe the GOP PTB would be well advised to line up in back of Ron Paul and make a big deal of taking the moral high ground: "We won't be accused again of stealing an election. That means we can't have a nominee who is there by fraudulent means. We also recognize that legal action by the Dems could disqualify McCain during the general election season, since he would have attained the nomination illegally, leaving us unrepresented in 2008. Furthermore, we now realize that our best chances in the general election lie in providing a true conservative alternative to the liberal Dems, and maybe it's time we gave the old Taft-Goldwater-Reagan brand of conservatism a try once more."

On that line of thinking, the GOP might not only tolerate but embrace a legal challenge by the Paul Campaign as a way to avoid committing political suicide. That will depend on whether party loyalty trumps loyalty to the corporate-fascist interests that so strongly influence both major parties -- a big question. Talks with the GOP leadership would certainly be in order....

The bottom line is that Ron Paul has every legal and moral right to demand a court injunction, or otherwise sue McCain, to remove the "presumptive" nominee from the race for his illegal acts, leaving Ron (for the moment, at least) the only candidate for the nomination. In my opinion, that approach has an even greater likelihood of winning him the nomination than does the strategy of packing the convention with delegates who can nominate him after the first ballot (a good strategy, but one subject to parliamentary maneuvering -- or simple railroading -- that could kill it).

Thoughts?

If McCain retreats and accepts that he's bound by his agreement to the spending limits (part of what made him "eligible" for the matching funds program), then he can't (or at least SHOULD'NT be allowed to) just pay back the surplus money he's raised. He has already received the benefits to his campaign that the money bought (except what he still hasn't spent). And it's his spending, not his fundraising, that is the problem. If candidates could spend way beyond the limits they agree to in order to be in the matching funds program, and then just pay back the "overage" later on, the law would be meaningless -- because it didn't control the spending as intended.

He broke the law, and if he gets away with it, that will be because of preferential treatment in the face of that law.

I hate to say it, but this whole mess is probably, as the article implies, simply going to result in a "fine." It won't stop his candidacy. The best thing WE can do is stay out of it at this point, but hope (spelled help) the democrats embarrass McCain with the mess as much as possible, which it seems they are willing to do without our involvement. I'm glad they are getting him. Probably talking about it here is all the help we need to lend. Their lurkers will take any good ideas back.

So now it seems he is saying he is going to take the funds if Obama does. I don't think that should be the way the game is played. He is confusing his own issue and mess. Last I heard, he had filed to get out of the funding. So it is "I'm in," no wait, "I'm out," no wait again, "I'm in," no, I mean, "If he is in, then I am in." Ridiculous. He is trying to put his mess on Obama's back. Pretty stupid. I think he should be held to the funding, his delegates from the states where he used the funding in place of signatures should be removed from him and he should be fined for his over expenditure since he accepted the funds. He cannot say he has not yet accepted the funds because he used the funds to avoid signatures. It should be easy enough to also see if he used the funds for collateral. Collateral and signatures are the two facts that need to be nailed down. He is a fool for breaking his own reforms. If he cannot even keep his own rules straight, how can he take care of the country. That is really sloppy.