1 | Craig Dunkerley

October 31st, 2007 at 3:38 pm

I think it would be sad if McCain declined public funding of his campaign because of pressure from the Club For Growth or anyone else. Although the presidential public financing system needs a major overhaul to make it a viable option in today’s campaign environment, it still serves it’s original purpose: to help cut the link between private money and public service, to give candidates the alternative of financing their campaigns with impartial public funds rather than private special interest funds, so that once elected they are free to serve the public interest of voters instead of the private interests of wealthy campaign donors (unions, corporations, PACs, and millionaires). Lastly, while McCain-Fiengold didn’t solve all campaign finance problems, it did reign in some of the huge soft money contributions that give access and influence to wealthy private interests at the expense of taxpayers, and it does not violate anyone’s 1st Amendment rights to free speech for the following reason: The wealthiest among us do have a right to speak…but they do not have right to drown out the rest of us just because they have more money. In a democracy political influence is supposed to be based on votes not dollars. Cudos to John McCain for standing with Barry Goldwater who said in a 1987 speech “Representative government assumes elections will be controlled by the citizenry at large, not by those who give the most money.” I hope John sticks to his guns and doesn’t back down on this.