* Obama: The hypocrisy of spending limits

Topics: Civil Liberties
17 Jul 2008

From: Ervan Darnell


After having been in favor of campaign spending limits, Obama renounced
them [1], now that he can get more money. "I believe in a limit until
it matters, then I don't." McCain, who has also been a proponent of
campaign censorship/government funding, has accepted the limits and
matching funds, but he wasn't going to raise enough money anyway to have
a moral dilemma (most likely). I think limits are a bad idea, but
that's not the point here.


I'm sure I can count on one hand the number of liberals who will not
vote for Obama because of his hypocrisy on the issue. They should. The
real hypocrisy is not just Obama's about face on this issue when tempted
with money, but a deeper one with the liberal argument:


The claimed goal of government funding is to both "level the playing
field" and avoid some private sector cash that would raise the
suggestion of influence (as if government cash weren't influence
peddling of a different sort). Democrats have in their continued
support for Obama, despite this issue, confessed that they don't
actually believe in leveling the playing field. When a "level playing
field" meant giving Democrats money they couldn't raise on their own,
they were in favor of it. Now that the tables are turned, they are
hardly noting it as an interesting issue.


The same logic applies to the size of donations. Republicans are more
likely to receive relatively few large contributions from entities
representing the pooled interest of individuals while Democrats are more
likely to receive more smaller contributions from individuals with
similar, but un-pooled, interests. A cap on contributions was just a
cynical ploy to handicap one player. How about a cap on the number of
contributions instead?


This is also like broadcast censorship (disingenuously called "the
fairness doctrine", it's newspeak almost). Liberals want to censor talk
radio since it has more conservative stations than liberal ones, all in
the name of "fairness" of course. But I haven't heard any of them
mention censoring, oh say, the New York Times, because it has more
subscribers than the Washington Times. Of course, "free speech for me,
but not for thee."


Bottom line: liberal claims of trying to fix the electoral system by
making it more fair are either dishonest or suffering from cognitive
dissonance, i.e. liars or fools. Whichever it is, they should be
rejected. If they were self-respecting, they would at the least refuse
to donate to Obama beyond the point he has as much money as McCain will get.


[1] http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Vote2008/story?id=5210799&page=1

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