Politics

Senator McCain and the Presidential Public Financing System

Bill Gratsch — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 11:16:10 GMT

Law Professor Rick Hasen, writing at Election Law Blog, posted an interesting piece yesterday (Sen. McCain in Legal and Political Pickle Over FEC Letter) concerning a decision from the Federal Election Commission "barring [Senator John] McCain, at least temporarily, from withdrawing from the presidential public financing system for the primary season..."

Mr. Hasen starts by laying out some history:

Here's the relevant background: Federal law establishes voluntary presidential public financing system, which provides matching funds for participating candidates in the primary period (matching the first $250 donated per contributor) provided the candidate accepts spending limits. There's both a national spending limit of around $54 million through the time of the candidate's nomination during the summer convention and more easily-circumvented state-by state limits. In the general election, participating major party candidates receive a flat grant (expected to be about $85 million in the 2008 election) provided they agree to raise no funds (except up to $20 million for administrative and legal expenses) for themselves in the general election.

He then continues by discussing how decisions made by Senator McCain (and other Presidential candidates) have led to the current state of affairs, while providing some of the politics also at work.

Today the chairman of the FEC, David Mason, sent a letter to McCain telling McCain that he can't withdraw from the public financing system for the primary until the FEC has enough members to constitute a quorum. The FEC is without a quorum because of a fight between Senate Democrats (led by Obama and Sen. Feingold) and Republicans over President Bush's nomination of Hans von Spakovsky to the FEC. Von Spakovsky, as I've explained in Slate, was one of the administration's "voter fraud warriors" responsible for, among other things, approving Texas's controversial mid-decade redistricting and Georgia's photo identification law for voting. In retaliation for Obama and Feingold's hold on von Spakovsky's nomination, the Republican leadership put three other nominations on hold. Now the FEC does not have enough members to engage in certain actions, such as granting McCain the right to withdraw from the campaign finance system.

Finally, Mr. Hasen concludes:

What got both Obama and McCain into these problems in the first place is that the public financing system needs updating. The spending limits need to be increased, along with the matching funds. But, as Mark Schmitt has pointed out, McCain voted against maintaining the current system, and for all of his reform credentials he has done nothing to update it to the 21st century. Maybe McCain has no one to blame but himself.

If you find the subject of interest, you can read the above snippets in context here: Sen. McCain in Legal and Political Pickle Over FEC Letter

Presidential Candidates and Viral Videos

Bill Gratsch — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 12:35:05 GMT

Looking at the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election, not only are Presidential candidates (and their opponents) actively producing and spreading videoclips, the web community is starting to slice and dice these clips in a variety of ways.

One interesting new way was pointed out this morning by Peter Black at Freedom To Differ in his post Ron Paul's momentum: gauging momentum of a particular candidate by assessing "how viral" a given clip has become. The site Viral Video Clips has an election list called US Presidential Candidates: Top 20 Viral Videos. On this page you can see the clips getting the most buzz.

I found the clips interesting, and often, pretty funny...check them out at the link above.

Thompson, Moore, Cuba, YouTube

Bill Gratsch — Sat, 19 May 2007 18:04:53 GMT

Pretty amazing to see how quickly the new media/technology teams behind all of the U.S. politicians and interest groups are able to react and attack these days.

The latest I have seen being the Michael Moore - Fred Thompson "debate" involving (as far as I can tell) Cuba, Mr. Moore's new movie Sicko, and cigars.

Former Senator Thompson offered some criticisms of Mr. Moore's movie, particularly a scene shot in Cuba,in the article, Paradise Island, at the National Review Online.

Mr. Moore apparently responded with some allegations suggesting Senator Thompson enjoyed smoking Cuban cigars.

Who knows?

Whatever the truths or falsehoods, both parties are reaping the rewards the publicity it is bringing. And, the people trying to get Senator Thompson to Run for President probably aren't exactly crying either.

Check out the latest, Senator Thompson's clip in response to Mr. Moore's "Cuban cigars" remarks:

I'll say one thing, these guys and their video teams are certainly creative and I am sure more is on the way.

No wonder Google acquired YouTube...

Politics on the Web. Even More Ever Year.

Bill Gratsch — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 18:12:06 GMT

A post by Ann Althouse last week, Liberals ideate furiously over the black-and-white McCain website, led me to visit not only John McCain.com but the websites of a number of other people who have expressed interest in a 2008 White House bid. Hillary Clinton, Rudy Guiliani, Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, and John Edwards, among others. Looking first at the calendar (Feb 2007) and then the election date itself (Nov 2008), made me think if every politician will ultimately have a private website constantly conveying the message, regardless how far out the next election may be (Newt Gingrich's Newt.org seems to be thinking in these terms already).

Moreover, I was struck by how sophisticated the websites are becoming. The graphics, the photographs, the features and functions, all have come along way over the last couple of election cycles. Also notable, the inclusion of multimedia, especially video, is becoming a standard feature. This latter feature is probably going to grow in importance, especially as teams of opposition videographers seem to be filming every interview and speech a presidential candidate makes, all in hopes of catching a few seconds of footage that reflects poorly on the candidate (which they immediately post to YouTube, Revver and similar websites. Of course, each candidates own supporters will also avail themselves of the same websites in posting more positive footage to the sites.

It is not a stretch to say that the 2008 Presidential election will be played out across the web at levels never before seen. The emergence of technologies and websites that allow for video content to be quickly disseminated worldwide in a form that you can actually consume in a matter of seconds (as compared to the interminable download/wait times of the past), will ensure this. It also makes me wonder if web's continued emergence will decrease the importance of traditional television and written publications in elections. For example, will regular inclusion on Yahoo's Presidential Election 2008 site become more important than regular inclusion than one of the countless political roundtable shows on the cable networks? And, in a nod to the future perhaps, something that seems a bit 'out there' today, like the news that an Edward's supporter had opened an unofficial virtual campaign headquarters in the virtual world of Second Life, may become standard issue [see John Edwards’ campaign enters Second Life, the news of which, was broken by, of course, the Second Life News Network: US Presidential Candidate John Edwards Launches Campaign in SL].

No matter the pace of change (and I tend to think it will faster than we realize), I don't see the web genie going back in the bottle. The sophistication of the web's new technologies, as well as the growing sophistication of the people employing these technologies, will ensure that.