Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Ruth Marcus criticizes Democrats for not pledging to spend more of our money
Even when Ruth Marcus starts out by making sense, you kind of know she can’t keep it up. today, she properly dismisses the dust up over who, among the Democratic presidential contenders, takes lobbyists’ money and who won’t:
“And, as you might have guessed from my tone, I don't think it would much matter if Democrats were to live in The World According to Edwards, who has never taken lobbyist money. Nice symbolism, perhaps, but how does it make candidates any purer to disdain checks from lobbyists while avidly vacuuming up contributions from the various industries they represent?” Democrats' Purity Primary
But Ms. Marcus is a liberal and are there two more important words for a liberal than “Public Financing”?
And so it is here - this all just leads to her preferred point: public financing of campaigns. Here she gushes over Senator Obama:
“On this issue, Obama leads the pack…”
“…Perhaps most important, Obama has pledged to take public financing for the general election if he is the Democratic nominee and his Republican opponent will do the same.”
Note, that’s IF his Republican opponent will do the same. Which is probably another way of him saying "I won't be publicly financing my general election campaign".
...that's because his Republican opponent would have to be a moron to do that. The Left is generally enamored with Campaign Finance (yes, yes, and John McCain too) but they have the advantage of free labor from Organized Labor and a decided advantage in much of the media. (Is it any wonder that the Orwellian ‘Fairness Doctrine’ is specifically targeted at the one piece of media that the Left has not quite captured (Exhibit A: Air America)?)
It takes a special mindset to consider taking money from the government somehow more virtuous than not taking it. Are there any real philosophical limits to what the Left believes government should be financing?
“And, as you might have guessed from my tone, I don't think it would much matter if Democrats were to live in The World According to Edwards, who has never taken lobbyist money. Nice symbolism, perhaps, but how does it make candidates any purer to disdain checks from lobbyists while avidly vacuuming up contributions from the various industries they represent?” Democrats' Purity Primary
But Ms. Marcus is a liberal and are there two more important words for a liberal than “Public Financing”?
And so it is here - this all just leads to her preferred point: public financing of campaigns. Here she gushes over Senator Obama:
“On this issue, Obama leads the pack…”
“…Perhaps most important, Obama has pledged to take public financing for the general election if he is the Democratic nominee and his Republican opponent will do the same.”
Note, that’s IF his Republican opponent will do the same. Which is probably another way of him saying "I won't be publicly financing my general election campaign".
...that's because his Republican opponent would have to be a moron to do that. The Left is generally enamored with Campaign Finance (yes, yes, and John McCain too) but they have the advantage of free labor from Organized Labor and a decided advantage in much of the media. (Is it any wonder that the Orwellian ‘Fairness Doctrine’ is specifically targeted at the one piece of media that the Left has not quite captured (Exhibit A: Air America)?)
It takes a special mindset to consider taking money from the government somehow more virtuous than not taking it. Are there any real philosophical limits to what the Left believes government should be financing?
