Campaign Finance Reform - An Opportunity Missed

by Tom Painter

Stage one of the current U.S. presidential campaign season is over. Right now it's likely that Vice President AI Gore and Texas Governor George W. Bush will be the dominant contenders for our nations highest office. That does not bode well for achieving meaningful campaign finance reform any time soon. The political history of both men is as diametrically opposed to the spirit of campaign finance reform as ever they could be.

Among the first round presidential candidates, only former Democratic Senator Bill Bradley and Republican Senator John McCain offered more than lip service to reforming our political campaign process. However, those two men lost their races for their party's nomination. Mr. Bradley's race with AI Gore seemed to lose its drive after the New Hampshire primaries. John McCain's budding insurgency appears to have been stopped with a barrage of slurs and distortions coming from the Republican establishment and right wing Christian political leaders; not to mention his own missteps in trying to blunt those assaults.

In how they countered their challengers, Mr. Gore and Mr. Bush did not offer us promising models of leaders who can move campaign finance reform to the top of the agenda. Both men have a high level of the political acumen of pandering to special interests, when it suits their purpose. Both men intentionally distorted their main opponent's positions, with false and negative ads. Mr. Bush has the added weight of having the establishment financing as his and greatest strength.

Mr. Gore likes to portray many of his current positions, on abortion and tobacco for example, as simply changes that evolved over time. That description ignores the obvious political expediency of his different positions, during the time he professes them. In the past, as a congressman, from a conservative southern tobacco growing state, Mr. Gore had no disagreement with the tobacco industry. He also took many opportunities to let his Tennessee constituents know he opposed abortions. Now, as the Democratic party's second highest elected official, Mr. Gore has become a champion of a woman's right to chose an abortion, and he never fails to rail against the big tobacco companies.

Recently, Mr. Gore's role in possible campaign finance mistakes has produced new calls for a special prosecutor on the issue. Now he wants to ask for forgiveness of past sins and proclaim his miraculous conversion to the reform cause. Will he never cease to reinvent himself? Can we believe it when he does?

Mr. Bush tried to sell an image of himself as a moderate who could unite people of differing viewpoints. But, from the start, like Mr. Gore and unlike Mr. McCain, he could not help but pander to special interests for funds and support. It began with Iowans who believe in the religion of ethanol. That's where you praise the growing of more corn than the food or farm industries need. Then you convert that excess corn to a source of fuel using more energy in that conversion than you get out of the fuel. Mr. Bush has no problem with our federal tax dollars going into this trough. Mr. McCain told the Iowans he would not go there and lie to them about the myths of their ethanol addiction. Was this a difference of positions or principles?

Then Mr. Bush tried to pander himself off to the independent minded citizens of New Hampshire, claiming he was the great outsider while 'chairman' McCain was deep in the

fix with 'Washington insiders'. Fortunately for Mr. McCain it did not help Mr. Bush that his surrogates in pushing this line included the entire political establishment of the Republican Party while 'insider' McCain had only a few 'outsiders' supporting him.

Next, the 'moderate' Mr. Bush went to conservative S. Carolina and his campaign began to demonstrate the worst attributes and most effective tactics of an old political tool. If you have to lie about your opponent, have someone else do it for you. The purpose of the political lie is to falsely paint your opponent in the negative on some position and leave the voter with the mistaken assumption that your position must be better. Also, it works best if you have someone else do this for you, then the lie does not come out of your mouth. Seldom has this tactic been put to greater effect than in the Bush campaign after New Hampshire.

To pander to the S. Carolina military veterans, the Republican establishment opened its final push there with a retired military officer from S. Carolina introducing Mr. Bush at a rally. In that speech, the retired officer lied about Mr. McCain's record on veterans' issues. The slander was so wrong that even Mr. Bush's supporters in the U.S. Senate eventually asked him to apologize for it. The apology came late, was ignored, and meanwhile the lie had begun to disconnect Mr. McCain from one of his natural constituencies.

To pander to religious conservatives, the Bush supporters employed radio talk shows, ads, and printed pamphlets, under the cover of his surrogates affiliated with the Christian Coalition. The goal was to distort Mr. McCain's positions as less conservative than they really are. This cooperation with Pat Robertson and his allies was not hard for the Bush campaign to achieve. Although Mr. McCain is closer to Christian fundamentalists than Mr. Bush on many issues, he is opposed by Christian fundamentalist leaders like Pat Robertson. That opposition comes about because McCain's campaign finance reforms would limit the influence on both parties from special interest groups like Mr. Robertson's Christian coalition. Again, the distortions worked and the flock followed their leaders.

Having won his staunchly conservative label with his victory in S. Carolina, Mr. Bush tried to restore his moderate image by wooing independents in Michigan and Arizona. That attempt failed.

In the New York and California primaries, the Republican establishment went back to the tried and true tactic of having surrogates lie for you. The goal was to fool women and environmentalists that Mr. McCain was patently opposed to their causes. Millions of dollars were spent on massive last minute radio and television ads that distorted Mr. McCain's record on breast cancer research and the environment. Mr. Bush disavowed any responsibility, although the ads were funded by Texas cronies of his - billionaires who have slept at the Governors mansion in Austin.

Mr. McCain has as good a record on breast cancer research as any Republican Senator. The breast cancer research money he voted against was slipped into a military appropriations bill and bypassed the Senate's committee review process. The particular alternative energy funding that McCain opposed was handled in the same way. While he has voted in favor of projects in his home state that would receive federal funds, McCain opposes such funding when it is slipped into unrelated legislation without going through the legislative committees to compete with other projects for the limited funds.

Meanwhile, the environmental regulation record for Mr. Bush, that was so highly praised in those ads, has helped lead Texas to it's highest rates ever for air and water pollution.

The tactics and the pandering apparently worked with the gullible American electorate. The once moderate, then conservative, and now moderate again George W. Bush used the most special interest funded campaign in American history to defeat one of the most ardent proponents of campaign finance reform. Why is the pattern here so clear to so many of us and ignored by the media and the pundits? Now we are supposed to take Mr. Bush into our hearts as the great reformer?

These examples are relevant to the issue because they demonstrate the unprincipled demeanor that our political campaigns take on, when money and it's influence is at the heart of our campaign process. The pandering supports the constant search for more financial support and the distortions and lies are funded by special interests, outside of the formal campaign structure and leaving the beneficiary unaccountable.

As the campaign season continues, we need to make one note here on the subject of the "establishment". Mr. Gore cannot evade his establishment pedigree. Mr. Bush would like to claim he has none. Let's be very clear here. The "establishment" is not the incumbent office holders and lobbyists in Washington D. C. or any other area. The "establishment" is the people and companies who make up the major contributors to our political campaigns and who foot the bills for the lobbyists at all levels of government. These are the real establishment figures behind Al Gore and their Republican counterparts that created the campaign of George W. Bush, before he had any position on a single national issue.

This all has a direct bearing on campaign finance reform, because it goes to the heart of why we can never expect it to be a serious issue for Al Gore or George W. Bush. They have both demonstrated that their great need to pander to special interests will not allow them to develop a political conscience. Their assemblage of coalitions is not with a leadership that convinces us that the correctness and sincerity of their convictions on some issues is more important than where we disagree on other issues. Their coalitions are built on money, pandering to special interests, and the false idea that the party is greater than the country.

Campaign finance reform needs to be our major priority. Otherwise all our other issues will not be resolved, in the best interest of the majority of Americans. The greatest influence on our public issues will continue to be bought and paid for in our political campaign process by the established special interests, whether those interests are commercial, political, religious or personal. If they can deliver the campaign money, they get the influence, to our common detriment.

I have offered none of this to promote anyone's candidacy. John McCain was a messenger who sensed this cause was lacking a spokesman, but the cause belongs to all Americans. Until the American people realize that it is not the power of elected office that corrupts as much as it is the money that buys that office, our campaign finance system will continue to sell our policies and regulations to the highest bidders.

Nothing would be more revolutionary than if a majority of Americans just wrote "none of the above" on next November's ballot.

Tom Painter

Guest Editorial

3/20/00