hates Mitt Romney. John McCain very badly wants to be President. But he's helped develop a system where it's incredibly difficult to run a competitive campaign for President without great personal wealth, Romney has that wealth, and he's using it to beat McCain to the dirt using ads which lets people know how McCain has opposed many of the things they believe in. It's the one loophole that McCain has failed to close in his campaign against free speech and the 1st Amendment. So what is driving that campaign? First and foremost what we've learned about the Senator is that if you're getting information about John McCain, McCain believes John McCain has the right to be delivering that message, and not anyone else.* We've seen this attitude from the race in 2000 against Bush, we've seen it in his arguments against free speech on the part of independent political action committees during the debates over McCain-Feingold, and we've seen it in his repeated anger against candidates who expose his record on television or in the Presidential debates. It's essentially the attitude of a ship's captain who won't brook competitive feedback from the crew. And it's a fundamental misunderstanding of democracy and the American system.
The John McCain we've come to know is a man with an enormous belief in his own right to shut up or angrily denounce people who speaks "truth to power" when it's his own position of power which is being contested. The problem with Romney is that he has too much money to shut up -- and McCain can't hardly stand it. It just isn't fair that that only thing that keeps him from rightly being shut up by McCain supported campaign finance law is that fact that he has more money than everybody else.
And in a less extreme form, I think a little bit of the same thing lies behind many of the candidate's evident resentment of Mitt Romney. But self-financing by the very, very rich is a constitutionally protected part of a legislative regime handcuffing free speech and the 1st Amendment, a scheme which all of them have supported, and I think these candidates need to grow up, stop whining, and live with it. If we unbound the 1st Amendment and let free speech once again rule the land, all of these candidates would have more than enough money. The fact that they don't is their own fault. Again, here's my advice for John McCain and the rest. Be a man. Stop whining.
*Of course, if the McCain message is coming via McCain friends in the MSM, well, John's willing to make an exception for that. Kind of him, isn't it.
The John McCain we've come to know is a man with an enormous belief in his own right to shut up or angrily denounce people who speaks "truth to power" when it's his own position of power which is being contested. The problem with Romney is that he has too much money to shut up -- and McCain can't hardly stand it. It just isn't fair that that only thing that keeps him from rightly being shut up by McCain supported campaign finance law is that fact that he has more money than everybody else.
And in a less extreme form, I think a little bit of the same thing lies behind many of the candidate's evident resentment of Mitt Romney. But self-financing by the very, very rich is a constitutionally protected part of a legislative regime handcuffing free speech and the 1st Amendment, a scheme which all of them have supported, and I think these candidates need to grow up, stop whining, and live with it. If we unbound the 1st Amendment and let free speech once again rule the land, all of these candidates would have more than enough money. The fact that they don't is their own fault. Again, here's my advice for John McCain and the rest. Be a man. Stop whining.
*Of course, if the McCain message is coming via McCain friends in the MSM, well, John's willing to make an exception for that. Kind of him, isn't it.
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