One Week and Counting…

It’s been exactly seven days, and counting, since the Center for Individual Freedom asked Senator McCain to ‘talk straight’ with the American people on whether he plans to campaign for President within the public financing system or abandon that system in favor of more campaign dollars.  

His only response to date has been to publicly vow to push legislation to muzzle even more political speech.   While McCain is out there trying to raise an estimated $500 million to support his bid for the White House, he wants to silence ‘527’ organizations – ironically groups he created through Congress’s passage of the McCain-Feingold bill.  That is not ‘straight talk,’ it’s the height of hypocrisy!

It appears that McCain wants to shut everyone out of the political process but himself.

The First Amendment is very clear in stating, “Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech…”  That seems to have been lost on Senator McCain as he seeks to further restrict the free speech and association rights of the American people.  At the same time, Senator McCain appears to be applying a double standard with his own presidential campaign.  While he shuns “money in politics,” he continues to refuse to answer the public financing question. 

The American people want “straight talk,” not “double talk.”

This from National Journal’s “The Hotline”

On January 29, National Journal’s “The Hotline,” ran this little snippet…

McCain-O-Crite?

The conservative, VA-based, Center for Individual Freedom has written to McCain asking if he “will abandon the limits of the current presidential public-financing system to try to raise more money than his rivals.” CIF pres. Jeffrey Mazzella: “Senator McCain has made so-called ‘clean elections’ a staple of his political career. Yet, now that Senator McCain is the front-runner for the GOP nomination, he continues to evade the direct question of whether he will abide by the very campaign finance limitations he advocates” (Arizona Republic, 1/28).

Human Events: McCain’s ‘Double Talk’

Highlighting CFIF’s activity to hold Senator McCain to his “Straight Talk” mantra, the conservative publication Human Events today published a story titled:  “McCain’s ‘Double Talk’ Hit From Both Sides”

The article is posted here.

CFIF Responds to McCain’s Plan to Introduce Legislation to Further Muzzle Political Speech

In response to Senator McCain’s announcement late last week to push legislation to further regulate the speech of so-called “527” organizations (groups like the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and America Coming Together, which were active in the 2004 elections), the Center for Individual Freedom fired off another letter to the Senate’s chief “campaign finance reformer.”

CFIF’s letter is posted here.

In it, CFIF points out that Americans – particularly Conservatives – are outraged at McCain’s plans to further muzzle political speech.  Indeed, such action is a slap in the face to the American people.

The letter reads, in part…

Arizona Republic: ‘McCain passing on public cash?’

On Sunday, January 28, the Arizona Republic, Senator McCain’s home-state newspaper, included the following headline:  ‘McCain passing on public cash?’

The full article can be found here.

The story references the fact that Senator McCain last year, “as he began eyeing a run for the White House in 2008,” removed his name as a sponsor of legislation he’d co-sponsored since 2003 to strengthen the presidential public financing system. 

According to the article…

Amid Question of Flip-Flopping, Senator McCain Announces He Will Introduce Legislation to Further Regulate ‘527’ Organizations

Responding to media inquiries prompted by a January 25 CFIF letter to Senator McCain in which the conservative organization asks the Senator to clearly state his intentions about whether he will abide by the presidential public financing limitations in his bid for the 2008 GOP nomination, Senator McCain’s office announced a plan to introduce legislation in the 110th Congress designed to “further clamp down on independent ‘527’ organizations.”

We thought he was trying to appeal to Conservatives.  Apparently not!

The announcement appeared in an article originally published on January 26 in The Politico, which can be found at http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0107/2482.html.  

“Yes, it is McCain’s bill and McCain will introduce it this Congress,” Mark Salter, McCain’s chief of staff, wrote in an e-mail [to The Politico].

In 2000, McCain Accepted Public Financing in the GOP Primary…

As a December 23, 2006 Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel article reminds us, “While Bush opted out of the [presidential public financing system] in the 2000 primaries, his main GOP rival, McCain, opted in.”

But a quick Google search found several articles that showed McCain opposing public financing early on in that campaign.  Specifically, in late 1999, McCain was insistent that he didn’t not want his tax dollars being used to support candidates with whom he disagrees.

Will McCain Abide By Campaign Finance Law?

NewsMax.com published a an article covering CFIF’s January 25 letter to McCain.

The article, titled ”Will McCain Abide By Campaign Finance Law,” is posted here. 

The better and more acurate question, however, is:  Will McCain abide by his own campaign finance principles, or will his political aspirations trump those principles — faulty as they may be.

It would appear that, for Senator McCain, what’s good for the goose isn’t necessarily good for the gander.

Has Senator McCain’s ‘Straight-Talk Express’ Taken a U-Turn in Favor of His Political Aspirations?

In a letter sent to Senator John McCain posted here  the Center for Individual Freedom (CFIF) today asked the Senator a simple question:

As a frontrunner for the 2008 Republican nomination for President, will you campaign within the presidential public financing system or is it your intention to abandon the limitations of that system in favor of more campaign dollars?

The letter goes on to read…