John McCain: Campaign Finance Criminal

by Todd Beeton, Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 03:37:48 PM EDT

Yesterday, Jane Hamsher of FireDogLake officially filed an FEC complaint against John McCain for exceeding the spending limit of $54 million that he agreed to when he opted into public financing originally but which he now finds inconvenient.

Christy puts it well:

As Markos of DailyKos pointed out in joining the complaint, "John McCain has officially blown past campaign spending limits mandated by his original acceptance of public campaign funding. While he has signaled his intent to withdraw from such financing, that has been hindered by the fact that he used the promise of public funding to secure a campaign loan." Guess the campaign finance laws only apply when they aren't inconvenient for McCain's ambitions.

Jane has more as she takes the complaint in to the FEC:

Jane filed the complaint on behalf of bloggers and activists everywhere -- have you signed on? Read the full text of the complaint (pdf) HERE and sign your name on to the complaint HERE.

And what do ya know, looks like CNN noticed:

Tags: 2008 Presidential election, FEC, Jane Hamsher, John McCain, public financing (all tags)

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17 Comments

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Re: John McCain: Campaign Finance Criminal

It won't matter, the FEC is currently paralyzed below the neck.  They can talk but can't do anything.

by Setrak 2008-03-26 03:39PM | 0 recs
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Re: John McCain: Campaign Finance Criminal

True. But that's not neccesarily a permanent thing.

by Sinbad Sinbad 2008-03-26 04:30PM | 0 recs
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Re: John McCain: Campaign Finance Criminal

McCain did alot of creative wording with his loan to try to make it appear it didn't depend on opting in to public financing, but to me the smoking gun is having his name automatically put on the ballot in some states because he accepted public financing.  He never undid that and collected the signatures instead to keep himself out of public financing.

by CA Pol Junkie 2008-03-26 03:45PM | 0 recs
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Re: John McCain: Campaign Finance Criminal

Is the documentation posted anywhere?  I haven't seen anything about the actual wording of the loan.

by Steve M 2008-03-26 04:43PM | 0 recs
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Todd didn't you get the memo...

The Rev Wright story is still breaking.

by Erik 2008-03-26 03:47PM | 0 recs
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Great stuff Todd

The best way to bring people down is to attack their perceived strengths. It's great what you're doing here. And the fact that it made the media is even better!

by Sinbad Sinbad 2008-03-26 04:29PM | 0 recs
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Re: John McCain: Campaign Finance Criminal

Not true.

When we have a nominee, they can start calling McCain out of this. And when the FEC weighs in, it'll really hurt McCain's credibility on this issue.

by Sinbad Sinbad 2008-03-26 04:30PM | 0 recs
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Re: John McCain: Campaign Finance Criminal

The GOP is definitely not going to let the FEC get a quorum before November, so nothing official is going to happen.  However, I hope he gets asked about it many times in the next 7 months.

by CA Pol Junkie 2008-03-26 04:38PM | 0 recs
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Re: John McCain: Campaign Finance Criminal

This too, is a campaign point to marry McCain to Bush and Bash the Repugs for being corrupt by not having a quorum on the FEC.

by NvDem 2008-03-26 05:40PM | 0 recs
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Re: John McCain: Campaign Finance Criminal

Being that McCain has already broken the law Obama already has an out. But being a Hillaryaddict blinds you from seeing reality.

by Erik 2008-03-26 04:39PM | 0 recs
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Ineffective.

This isn't going to be very effective coming from the left wing blogosphere.  The McCain campaign will have a much easier time dismissing this in the MSM now.  There should have been a bigger push to get someone else to file this complaint.

by Brillobreaks 2008-03-26 04:37PM | 0 recs
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Re: Ineffective.

It has to start somewhere.

by Drummond 2008-03-26 04:50PM | 0 recs
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Re: John McCain: Campaign Finance Criminal

The virtual signature is fine, but how about making the complaint available online so people can print out their own and submit hard copies?  A few million complaints mailed to the FEC and cc'ed to the Attorney General might make a difference.

by Drummond 2008-03-26 04:51PM | 0 recs
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Re: John McCain: Campaign Finance Criminal

Look Here the link is below the names to a pdf file.

by NvDem 2008-03-26 05:45PM | 0 recs
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Re: John McCain: Campaign Finance Criminal

That's fine, but how about one that's ready to print out and sign?

by Drummond 2008-03-26 07:36PM | 0 recs
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Re: John McCain: Campaign Finance Criminal

It's kind of hard to believe that McCain's lawyers didn't have a way around this figured out in advance.  So call me a skeptic on this one.

by dMarx 2008-03-26 05:42PM | 0 recs
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Re: John McCain: Campaign Finance Criminal

Then again, I would never have believed that HIllary would have made up that whole Bosnia thing. So maybe my credulity is uncalled for.

by dMarx 2008-03-26 05:43PM | 0 recs

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