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Tuesday, December 16, 2003
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FASCINATING TO ME, BORING TO EVERYONE ELSE
The fear and desperation of the Democratic Party is palpable. More than that it's now physically tangible. You can actually feel it. You can stroke and pet the all-consuming fear as you would a domesticated cat.
As some of you know, Congress passed a particularly ridiculous law last year called McCain/Feingold that makes it virtually impossible for political parties to raise money. The Supreme Court, in an egregious affront to common sense, last week upheld the legislation. McCain/Feingold is not going to make elections any cheaper though. All it accomplishes is that spending will be shifted from the parties to "independent third parties." You know, "independent" groups like the NRA, the Sierra Club, and the Nartional Abortion Rights League.
MoveOn.org is the most visible of these groups this year. While the individual Democratic candidates are blowing their financial load in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina; MoveOn.org is running national ads critical of the Bush Administration. Since the Democratic and Republican National Committees are no longer allowed to raise more than bus fare and the Bush campaign is far ahead in most state polls, these are the only ads you're likely to see.
But that won't stop anyone from breaking the law. From the beginning of time, it's been illegal for non-U.S citizens to contribute to American parties or candidates. Of course, this isn't stopping some people. Democratic candidate and frequent Republican voter, Wesley Clark has figured out a way to be particularly cute. His website links to a collection of grassroots organizations, which presumably are in the business of raising money for Clark. One of those grassroots groups linked to his website is Canada for Clark.
Canada for Clark has an interesting mission statement. But it's apparently not enough for Canadians to love Clark, we must also give him money. How can a Canadian support Clark financially, you ask? Through MoveOn.org, of course.
Neat little scheme, if I do say so myself. Incredibly stupid for Clark to be directly involved in, but still neat. Now that the story has broken, and I don't expect it to be as huge a story as it should be, Clark basically has two possible defenses; he can say, "Well, I didn't know about it. You can't really expect me to know anything about running a large organization like the military.....or the government, do you?" Or he can say something like, "What the fuck? I really don't know that much about politics or the law or anything. Can I be president now?"
Either way, it's nice to see that campaign finance reform worked out pretty much the way I thought it would.
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