nydailynews.com Money Thorn in Bush's
Side
Al Gore could not have put his soft-money challenge to George
W. Bush in plainer English: "Let's end this scourge of
American politics and act jointly to clean up the system
now!" With those words, the vice president threw down the gauntlet
to the Texas governor to join him in barring the corrupting influence
of special-interest, big-bucks giving in the last 40 days of the
campaign.
Sadly for the nation, Dubya turned him down cold. That prompted
Republican Sen. John (Straight Talk) McCain to attack his own
party's standard-bearer for "doing the wrong thing."
Gore did the right thing, and showed real leadership, in vowing to
order the Democratic Party to ban all TV and radio spots paid for
by soft money — those unlimited, unregulated and insidious outside
campaign donations — if Bush would commit the GOP to an
identical pledge.
Sens. McCain and Russ Feingold, the bipartisan clean-campaign
crusaders, had appealed to Gore, Bush and all senatorial candidates
to voluntarily replicate the breakthrough pact forged by Rick Lazio
and Hillary Clinton in New York.
What made Gore's acceptance, just 48 hours later, all the more
compelling was that, as the veep himself acknowledged, he was "the
imperfect messenger" to champion this unprecedented halt to
unregulated contributions.
Indeed, Gore's 1996 mad-money excesses — the White House
phone solicitations, the Buddhist temple fund-raiser fiasco, the
laughable "no-controlling-legal-authority" explanations — once
threatened to derail his political career. But like Saul on the road to
Damascus, Gore also may have seen a blinding vision. Or at least
the light: $257 million, all soft; $153 million raised by the GOP and
$104 million collected by the Democratic Party.
Yes, of course, political considerations in a head-to-head race
motivated Gore. So what? Electoral timetables often spawn good
public policy, and this is a classic case. But contrast his new
initiative with the stammering retreat beat by Bush when the
unthreatening Larry King asked him on CNN if he'd agree to a
soft-money ban:
"Yes, I mean, you know, uh, I don't trust him, to be frank with you .
. . so I, I, I guess I would listen to it, but I would be skeptical."
Did the man say trust? Interesting he should raise the issue. When it
comes to campaign finance, Dubya has zero credibility.
In the quarter-century, post-Watergate history of finance reform
laws, he is the first presidential nominee to bypass voluntary
spending limits in the primary season, shunning the caps — and
federal matching funds — to raise obscene piles of cash to crush
the McCain insurgency. By contrast, his own father participated in
public finance in four national runs in 1980, '84, '88 and '92.
Dubya can still join Gore in forswearing soft dollars. McCain and
Feingold are available to help him structure the deal. But,
unfortunately, Bush has yet to see that blinding flash. |
