Fred Hiatt and The Politico: put them together and what do you get? Some mighty fierce wanking, that's what.
For most voters, Barack Obama’s shift away from public financing is not as big a deal as the mounting death toll in Iraq, surging gas prices — or even what they’re going to make for dinner tonight.
But Obama’s announcement Thursday that he would become the first candidate to opt out of the public financing program for the general election was a big deal for some of the nation’s most influential newspaper editorial boards, which have long been ardent champions of campaign finance reform and which had thought they’d found a kindred spirit on the issue.
Friday morning, scathing editorials in many top broadsheets characterized Obama’s move as a self-interested flip-flop, dismissed his efforts to cast it as a principled stand and charged that Obama wasn’t living up to the reformer image around which he has crafted his political identity.
The scolding could mark a turning point in what has been, on balance, fawning treatment of Obama, an Illinois Senator and the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, on editorial pages.
"Fawning"? Our nation's elite editorial boards? Why, they would never do that silly thing, fawning over a politician, building him up as some sort of ethical and moral paragon, casting him in a heroic mold he doesn't really deserve! As if!
Oh, wait.
Obama’s Republican opponent, John McCain, will participate in the public financing system, which this year will provide $84 million in taxpayer funds to candidates who agree to limit their spending to that amount. Obama is expected to raise many times more than that.
Many of the same top editorial boards that have criticized McCain’s unwavering support for a long military presence in Iraq have also lauded his efforts to pass stricter campaign finance, ethics and lobbying laws.
“The fact that McCain has been willing over the years to take the lead on these issues, when it’s arguably not in his self-interest, is one measure of character that over the years we’ve respected,” said Fred Hiatt, editorial page editor of The Washington Post.
In deciding which candidates to support, Hiatt told Politico that the Post’s editorial board looks at campaign finance reform issues as “a significant factor, but among many factors that we would consider.”
The board viewed Obama’s backtrack on public financing “as an important issue and also as a test of whether he would put principles he said were important to him above political calculation. And he didn’t. That tells us something. It doesn’t tell us everything.”
Right. First of all, the WaPo editorial page has most certainly not "criticized McCain’s unwavering support for a long military presence in Iraq." That's ludicrous.
Next, McCain's stance on campaign financing sure does tell us plenty about his character, in that he is deliberately breaking the law and the GOP is helping him get away with it.
Fortunately, the evidence suggests that nobody actually gives a wet shit what Fred Hiatt thinks, but he sure is annoying.
I guess this is another instance where McCain's violation of the rules he championed is too complicated for most to get-- or care to report about.
Expect much whining from the McCain camp until they figure out a way to opt out of the public finance system again -- and he can do it since because Bush wants to stack the deck, there's no FEC with teeth.
One particularly humorous argument I have read on these here internets is that the Republicans don't have any 527's out there attacking Obama. That's seriously funny.
Thanks for this post.
Posted by: Michelle | June 21, 2008 at 11:23 PM
On the Fred scale, Hiatt's well below Mercury, Gwynn, Flintstone, and just below Fender, insofar as his capacity for getting folks to hear him out.
He couldn't draw attention from a firefighter if he was ablaze.
Posted by: Kevin Hayden | June 22, 2008 at 01:55 AM
"...it's arguably not in his self interest..." to take $80 million that he could not otherwise raise? WTF? Obama is showing that he's in this to win, not curry favor with the Post editorial board. Hiatt admits upfront that the voters don't give a shit about this "issue".
Posted by: Davis | June 22, 2008 at 12:12 PM
On the Fred scale, Hiatt's well below Mercury, Gwynn, Flintstone, and just below Fender, insofar as his capacity for getting folks to hear him out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9nwcpGZE6A
Posted by: rea | June 22, 2008 at 06:10 PM