Door left open for an emergency stop on the Straight Talk Express?

[Coexist]

2/15/08 - John McCain goes on the record stating he will stand by his "year-old pledge made with Senator Barack Obama that each would accept public financing for the general election if the nominee of the opposing party did the same."

2/20/08 - Barack Obama officially replies himself. "In 2007, shortly after I became a candidate for president, I asked the Federal Election Commission to clear any regulatory obstacles to a publicly funded general election in 2008 with real spending limits. The commission did that. But this cannot happen without the agreement of the parties' eventual nominees. As I have said, I will aggressively pursue such an agreement if I am my party's nominee."

This comes with a very shrewd caveat, "I propose a meaningful agreement in good faith that results in real spending limits. The candidates will have to commit to discouraging cheating by their supporters; to refusing fundraising help to outside groups; and to limiting their own parties to legal forms of involvement. And the agreement may have to address the amounts that Senator McCain, the presumptive nominee of his party, will spend for the general election while the Democratic primary contest continues."

2/21/08 - The head of the FEC is not sure that the Straight Talk Express will even be allowed to because "McCain struck a deal with the bank: he promised to only commit to using the system if he lost the primary. If he won, he would opt out of the program, and he'd be more than able to pay the bank back, because the funds would come flowing. McCain's lawyers were evidently very pleased with the canniness of this arrangement."


So - McCain may weasel out? Mr. Straight Talk?

Now - the big question - who can stop McCain from spending more than $54 million?

If the FEC ultimately decided that McCain could not opt out of the system, the consequences would be severe for him. He'd be limited to spending $54 million through August -- meaning that the Democratic nominee would be able to outspend him several times over.

But there's a major catch, of course. The FEC can't take any official action, because it's still shut down over the deadlock in the Senate. The FEC needs four commissioners to act; it currently only has two.

So all the FEC can do for now is send inquiries. But if by some miracle the impasse in the Senate were broken, it could mean trouble for McCain.

Interesting, no?

[calmblueocean]

1. Very interesting.

I'll be interested to see how Obama and McCain work this out. Obama obviously has a kickass fundraising machine going and can far outraise McCain, so it would be in McCain's interest to agree to whatever Obama offers.

[Coexist]

2. I wish this was getting a little more play than lobbygate, but

I think if his inability to fulfill his big promise because of primary weaseling comes out after questionable ties to lobbyists - it will increase that icky taste in some mouths.

[Coexist]

3. "Legal or not, it should bring to an end whatever tiny thread of credibility John McCain still has "

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=02&year=2008&base_name=the_pete_rose_of_politics

BETTING THE SPREAD.

We now have the exact language of John McCain's "second loan," and it is a legal masterpiece, albeit an ethical travesty. Based on the Washington Post report, I inferred that McCain had not excluded public matching funds from the collateral for his additional loan. But it's much more complex than that. The second loan, for $1 million, was actually a modification of the first, and so it continued to exclude the certification for matching funds from the loan's collateral. But it included this remarkable addition (which I'm going to quote in full just so no one thinks I used an ellipsis to distort the meaning):

Additional Requirement. Borrower and lender agree that if Borrower withdraws from the public matching funds program, but John McCain then does not win the next primary or caucus in which he is active (which can be any primary or caucus held the same day) or does not place at least within 10 percentage points of the winner of that primary or caucus, Borrower will cause John McCain to remain an active political candidate and Borrower will, within thirty (3) days of said primary or caucus (i) reapply for public matching funds, (ii) grant to Lender, as additional collateral for the Loan, a first priority perfected security interest in and to all Borrower's right, title and interest in and to the public matching funds program, and (iii) execute and deliver to Lender such documents, instruments and agreements as Lender may require with respect to the foregoing.

<snip>
What does this mean? It means that rather than pledge his existing certification for matching funds as collateral for the loan, which would bind him to the system and thus the spending limits, McCain carefully pledged to seek to re-enter the system later, and to use a non-existent future certification as collateral. And while the system is "voluntary," McCain essentially traded away for cash his right to choose whether to participate in the system, and even his right to drop out of the presidential race, allowing the bank to force McCain "to remain an active candidate" in order to reapply for and qualify for funds. He was betting the spread (10 points) on his own primary performance! I don't think it's an exaggeration to say this is a promise to perpetuate a fraud on the American taxpayers: if he no longer intended to seek the presidency, he made a legally-binding promise to pretend to remain in the race just long enough to collect public money to repay the loan.


<snip>
There's a reason no one's ever done anything like this. It makes a travesty of the choice inherent in voluntary public financing, between public funds and unlimited spending. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Legal or not, it should bring to an end whatever tiny thread of credibility John McCain still has as a straight-talker or reformer of the political process.

[Coexist]

4. //

[Coexist]

5. c'mon! McCain BET that he would lose the Primary to get a loan

and now Mr. "Hey Barack, prove to me that you will use Public Financing" MAY NOT BE ABLE TO LEGALLY GET IT HIMSELF?

Really??? No one cares?

:shrug:

[JimGinPA]

6. I Made A Thread About This Same Thing Morning...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=4694304&mesg_id=4694304

[JimGinPA]

7. ...

K&R