Time and again, we’ve explained why we’re against campaign finance “reform.” Quite simply, not only do such restrictions violate core free speech and association rights, but all too often our elected representatives manipulate campaign finance rules to advantage themselves and disadvantage their opponents. Old Politics, New Politician

Time and again, we’ve explained why we’re against campaign finance “reform.” Quite simply, not only do such restrictions violate core free speech and association rights, but all too often our elected representatives manipulate campaign finance rules to advantage themselves and disadvantage their opponents — thus disempowering their constituents, the voters.

Nevertheless, if actions really do speak louder than words, we wondered why haven’t campaign finance “reformers” started questioning just what’s so “different” about Barack Obama’s “kind of politics?”

After all, since announcing his presidential candidacy with rhapsodic rhetoric lamenting that Washington has become “so gummed up by money and influence that we can’t tackle the big problems that demand solutions,” the presumptive Democratic nominee has been practicing politics in the same old ways. As has become perfectly clear, what you hear in Obama’s speeches bears little resemblance to what you get in Obama’s actions — especially when it comes to his campaign’s finances and where they come from.

It’s no secret that the presumptive Democratic nominee’s campaign has been a cash cow. But what wasn’t widely known, until Thursday, was who was being milked and who was doing the milking.

Obama, himself, would have Americans believe — and has told them — that it’s been average Joes and Janes who have “fueled this campaign with donations of $5, $10, $20, whatever [they] can afford.” In fact, by waxing poetically about a “grassroots movement” that has “already changed the way campaigns are funded,” the presumptive Democratic nominee has more than suggested that his campaign coffers got filled spontaneously “from the bottom up.”

To be fair, that’s not a lie, just a half-truth. But the other half of the truth came out this week on the front page of the New York Times.

Specifically, in a story headlined “In Obama Campaign, Big Donors Are a Major Force,” the Gray Lady reported that the presumptive Democratic nominee has already collected “a total of $112 million” from large “donations of $1,000 or more.” Indeed, the Times article observed “Obama’s major donors [are] on a pace that almost rivals” the war chest “raised by President Bush’s network of Pioneers and Rangers in contributions of $1,000 or larger during the 2004 primary season.”

What’s more, despite implying otherwise by disclaiming reliance on “Washington lobbyists and special interest PACs,” it’s now much clearer that this self-identified “new” politician has been employing old methods to rake in the dough.

According to the Times, “[b]ehind those larger donations is a phalanx of more than 500 Obama ‘bundlers,’ fund-raisers who have each collected contributions totaling $50,000 or more.” The story explained that, just like old-school candidates before him, the presumptive Democratic nominee “worked to build a network of big-dollar supporters from the time he began contemplating a run for the United States Senate.” And, most important, Obama “cultivate[d] some of his party’s most influential money collectors” the old-fashioned way, “through phone calls, meals and one-on-one meetings.”

Almost formulaically, the Times story made sure to mention even-handedly that “fund-raisers invariably say their support for [Obama] is not rooted in any kind of promise of access, but rather their belief in him.” However, the article also stated not only that “some top donors clearly have policy and political agendas,” but also that “[m]any fund-raisers sit on the campaign’s array of policy working groups, getting a chance to weigh in on policy positions and speeches.”

Quite frankly, all the campaign finance scare was there in the Times article — rich people making large contributions through influential contacts to a political candidate who can supposedly return the favor at some later date in some other way. So, not being true believers ourselves, we wondered why no campaign finance “reformers” had come out to take the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate to task for saying one thing and doing another — especially on their pet issue.

Then we remembered that actions do speak louder than words, and realized we have been right all along. Campaign finance “reform” isn’t about empowering the voters or leveling the playing field, it’s about picking winners and losers. In other words, like Obama, campaign finance “reform” is just old-fashioned politics masquerading as brand-new ideas.

August 7, 2008
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