Dean to McCain: Show Me Your Slip

photo by frankblacknoir

Oh, you "maverick."

John McCain’s defense of his decision to break the law and thumb his nose at the FEC by announcing his departure from the public financing system largely consists of stamping his foot and claiming "Howard did it too!"

Dean applied (but was never certified) for public financing, and never materially benefited from it. Nonetheless, he followed FEC procedure and asked for a decision about whether he could leave after having applied. And the FEC sent him a letter (PDF) telling him it was okay.

So Johnny, if you got one o’those, can we see it?

Meanwhile, as Hugh noted yesterday:

I was going back through the timing. The McCain-FEC story broke in the WaPo on Saturday February 16 as far as I can tell. On its home page, Democracy 21’s last article under What’s New is from February 20. On its Newswire, it has story’s from February 21 and 25. Now the McCain story has been around for 9 days. You would think that even moving at a sedate pace Democracy 21 might have had a chance by now to respond to it or simply link to the story. But as far as I can see zero, zip, nada.

And you would expect something from them. Here are their goals from their mission statement:

Democracy 21 provides the public and media with the latest information and analysis on money and politics, and focuses its activities on:

Promoting campaign finance reforms, such as the ban on soft money enacted in 2002, reforming the Federal Election Commission and fixing the presidential public financing system;

Ensuring that the new campaign finance law and the nation’s other campaign finance laws are effectively implemented and enforced; and

Defending campaign finance laws in the courts.

http://www.democracy21.org/ind…..&SEC={BF5ECB7D-47F4-42A2-B73D-2655EA0A19AE}

Perhaps it’s unfair but I too have to begin to wonder if Wertheimer is another one of these Establishment liberal types like Mark Shields who gets a chubby every time McCain’s name gets mentioned.

But as Mark Schmitt points out, Democracy 21 has been in contact with McCain of late:

As it happens, the five groups sent McCain a letter late last week. Did they ask him to obey the spirit of the law, or keep his own commitment to public financing?

No. They gently asked McCain to sign on as a cosponsor of legislation to fix the presidential public financing system, and respectfully noted his leadership on the issue in the past.

The silence, one would say, is deafening. — except for the gentle sound of the organization’s credibility as it slowly circles the drain.

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3. When the Women of Afghanistan Speak, Does Howard Dean Listen?
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