Politics: McCain's Big Backers
Norquist, Grover G.
POLITICS by Grover G. Norquist McCain's Big Backers T he establishment press has successfully focused our attention on the 557,186,658 Texas Governor George W. Bush raised in the first nine...
...McCain has also spent $7.3 million of that legally raised money...
...And Morella is not "in your face" about her frequent departures from orthodoxy...
...There are perhaps ten members like Sherwood Boehlert and Fred Upton who vote significantly to the left of their districts out of personal conviction...
...It is the art perfected by the late Democratic Senator William Proxmire...
...Under Feingold-McCain the New York Times would be allowed to run as many editorials endorsing candidates as it wished...
...The political machines in Chicago, San Francisco, New Orleans, and Baltimore illegally turn over thousands of full-time government employees to Democratic campaigns...
...There is no home state pressure to vote with the Democrats on campaign finance "reform...
...But House leaders know that her district—a suburb of Washington, D.C.—is teeming with federal workers and that a more conservative Republican would not keep that seat...
...Interestingly the same level of disappointment and contempt was not directed at the six defectors...
...Many congressmen and senators vote against the party from time to time...
...Yes, McCain has raised $9.4 million the same way George Bush basin checks of $1,000 or less...
...Michael Barone, author of The Almanac of American Politics, has noted the worldwide phenomenon in which conservative causes, parties, and candidates poll poorly eleven months of the year when presented through the hostile lens of an establishment press and then do better in the month prior to an election when they can at least compete usingpaid advertising...
...this shows up in the Republican surge in October when political advertising by conservatives and Republicans can compete against hostile "news" coverage...
...But McCain's campaign—which on October 15 was down to $1.4 million cash on hand—is only alive thanks to unreported corporate contributions from one particular industry with a special interest in his legislative agenda...
...Maine voters do not demand their leeward voting patterns...
...But McCain's defection was unforgivable because it almost won a critical issue for the Democrats that could permanently weaken his own party...
...And the usual watchdogs in the press have failed to cover the huge corporate largesse that dwarfs what Clinton was able to get out of China and Indonesia in 1996...
...Why the silence...
...Every minute of pro-campaign finance reform puff pieces on "NBC News" is worth $170,000...
...Terminal liberalism is also understandable...
...Under certain conditions the GOP caucus can be extremely understanding of periodic acts of rebellion...
...One Times editorial is worth more than any one individual can give in a year...
...He'd go after wasteful spending through his "Golden Fleece" awards—only to turn around to vote for every left-wing program that broke the budget...
...Under present campaign law it is illegal for any individual to contribute more than $1,000 to a campaign or more than $25,000 total to all political parties or campaigns in total...
...They know that the pro-life and pro-Second Amendment activists will be silenced and later crushed if McCain triumphs on this "simple procedural issue...
...If Feingold-McCain had passed, it would have transferred unprecedented power to the elite media and to the two pillars of the Democratic coalition that continue to ignore or violate campaign finance laws with impunity: Big Labor and the big city machines...
...McCain claims he will force another vote on his bill next year during the presidential race...
...Ann Coulter of George magazine has calculated that McCain's positive press in the editorial pages of the Times was worth $2.2 million this year...
...78 December 1999/January 2000 • The American Spectator buy this amount of space would cost between $8.4 million and $19.4 million...
...In the U.S...
...Every other elected Republican from Arizona voted against it...
...The legislation was defeated and Republicans captured the House and Senate in 1994 — something Feingold-McCain would have made impossible...
...Some liberal Republicans vote to support the National Endowment forthe Arts or to fund population control in Ethiopia not because of district pressures but because of ideological bent...
...The National Right to Work Committee estimates that labor bosses spent $500 million in unreported campaign activity in 1996...
...Taxpayer groups, property rights groups, the National Rifle Association, and social conservatives who all find the establishment press ignores their positions would be made criminals if they tried to break through the establishment press's biases by buying ad time to talk directly to the American people...
...McCain has betrayed conservative principles and a united conservative movement and Republican Party by supporting restrictions on grassroots political activity that was designed by the Senate's perhaps most left-wing senator—Russell Feingold...
...A fourth kind of lapse in party loyalty can be tolerated...
...The third "excuse" is the "Ron Paul exemption...
...But ideological consistency does not explain McCain's support for campaign finance reform...
...Neither Majority Leader Trent Lott nor Speaker Dennis Hastert expects every Republican to vote in lockstep...
...Because the sources of these campaign contributions are the major news media corporations themselves...
...But the establishment press has worked hard to ignore the $6o million that American—and some foreign—corporations have effectively contributed to Arizona Senator John McCain's campaign...
...Everyone was expected to go along— except Ron Paul of Texas...
...He's the Senate's best leader against taxing the Internet, votes for tax cuts, and has led the fight to require a supermajority to impose new taxes...
...Jeffords of Vermont and the late Chafee of Rhode Island could make similar claims to "need" to vote left to win re-election...
...Every single Democrat voted with John McCain against the filibuster, as did six other Republicans—Thompson, Specter, Jeffords, Chafee, Snow, and Collins...
...Fein-gold's legislation (co-sponsored by McCain) would make it a crime for the National Right to Life Committee to raise money and buy television or newspaper ads to tell voters how a candidate stood on the abortion issue within 6o days of an election...
...This cross-ideological trump is also practiced by Sen...
...In the last two years, McCain's position on campaign finance reform was highlighted in 2,948 articles (including 659 editorials) in major newspapers...
...The American Spectator • December r 9 99 /January 2000 79...
...In return, McCain has received millions of dollars of free advertising for his campaign in the form of flattering news articles, editorials, and time on national television...
...There's a reason why liberal columnists and editorial pages that hate McCain's pro-life and pro-gun positions "admire" him...
...But McCain is the senior senator from Arizona, Barry Gold-water's home state...
...One day then-Speaker Newt Gingrich called on all House Republicans to band together on a budget vote, even though it was a messy compromise that spent too much money...
...Connie Morella of Maryland voted against impeachment, against the tax cut, and regularly votes for federal funding of abortion...
...A one-minute ad on "Meet the Press" costs $220,000...
...There have been no additional exemptions passed out...
...In 1987, Senator McCain led the fight against the Democratic legislation S.2, pointing out that campaign finance reform was a dirty trick by the Democrats to lock themselves into power...
...Charles Grassley, who votes against high-profile Pentagon waste but is a consistent Reagan Republican vote on foreign policy...
...This strategy is accepted as long as the "cross trump" is played in a losing hand or if the issue is one of marginal importance...
...Maine's Senators Snow and Collins fall into this category...
...If a senator promoted high tariffs to protect the American automobile industry and then received millions of dollars from General Motors and Ford to buy television ads, it would be recognized as the rankest form of corruption...
...The network has given John McCain many "free" minutes to talk about campaign finance reform...
...Democrat Charlie Stenholm holds his conservative Texas seat by giving the right his vote on high-profile issues—while slavishly doing the work of the hard-left Democratic leadership...
...The anger that Republican senators and conservative activists directed against McCain was white hot...
...But John McCain is not a liberal...
...It is an impressive number and was cited by Lamar Alexander, Elizabeth Dole, Dan Quayle, and Pat Buchanan as each conceded defeat in the Republican race for the presidential nomination...
...Other conservatives wanted to know what it would take to get a "Ron Paul exemption" for themselves...
...There's a reason for this...
...It is true that nearly a century ago President Theodore Roosevelt signed federal legislation outlawing corporate contributions, but this has not slowed down the soft money flowing to McCain...
...Lincoln, how did you like the play...
...In 1999 alone, McCain has appeared on "Face the Nation" five times, "Meet the Press" six times, and "This Week" six times...
...Buthe got more press for his "anti-waste" votes...
...The answer was to have a consistent voting record against all spending—even in your home district...
...W hen Feingold-McCain was brought up for a vote in the Senate, Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell filibustered the measure as he has in the past...
...Someday they may face a primary challenge from Republicans more in keeping with the values of upstate New York or southwest Michigan, but until then there is little the GOP leadership can do to move their votes...
...Anyone interested in whether America will move right or left in the next generation should continue to keep an eye on Feingold-McCain...
...Said McCain: "What this legislation is all about in its present form is who is going to be in the majority for the next 40 years...
...CBS could continue to spend millions bringing liberal guests on their morning shows or paying Republican-hater Bryant Gumbel...
...He champions free trade, school choice, and a strong defense...
...A minute of advertising on ABC's "Good Morning America" costs $8o,000...
...A quarter-page ad on the op-ed page of the New York Times costs $28,170...
...Their contributions of labor, phones, xeroxing, fraudulent votes, and transportation are not reported and would not be limited by Feingold-McCain...
...He just doesn't send out press releases about his victories for big government...
...But conservatives who wished to pay to get in the game could go to jail...
...To Who needs public financing if the media love you...
...POLITICS by Grover G. Norquist McCain's Big Backers T he establishment press has successfully focused our attention on the 557,186,658 Texas Governor George W. Bush raised in the first nine months of 1999...
...Average ten minutes per show and NBC has given McCain $13.2 million dollars in free advertising...
...McCain was preening for the national press while publicly claiming his fellow Republican senators were corrupt—by raising money legally in campaign contributions...
...GROVER G. NORQUIST is president of Americans for Tax Reform...
...For one thing, it's easy to excuse members from marginal districts or states...
...To ask about Senator McCain's policy positions other than his commitment to passing Feingold-McCain is to be reminded of the one-line joke, "Other than that, Mrs...
...Unfortunately for McCain, he fits none of them...
Vol. 32 • December 1999 • No. 12
