The New York Times has an article today that focuses on how John McCain’s uncompromising style of politics (until late, anyway) has created the presidential candidate’s current fundraising woes.
For example, McCain has repeatedly hit defense contractors for being corrupt and wasteful, instead of using his position on the Armed Services Committee to become chummy with the industry. And he pays the price: his contributions from the military industry are less than half of what Chris Dodd has been able to pull in.
The problem is one McCain should have seen coming. One of his signature pieces of legislation is McCain-Feingold, which sought to limit the power of big money in politics. Now he has to do the big money dance, and no one with deep pockets wants to be his partner. Obama doesn’t take money from lobbyists or special interests, so he would seem to be in the same position as McCain. So how does Obama raise so much while McCain is able to raise so little? One might argue that Obama has more momentum and a more magnetic personality. Or one might argue that Obama isn’t America’s single strongest supporter of a disastrous and badly unpopular war, and isn’t alienating his own party over a surprisingly electric issue.
At Swampland, Joe Klein is getting sentimental over McCain’s failings, and I can’t quibble. I was victim to the same sort of thing when it was revealed in The Hill that McCain almost abandoned the GOP a few years back. I assumed that the news effectively meant the end of the McCain campaign, and I was sad to see McCain go. Klein disagrees with McCain’s stance on the war but calls him an “essentially honorable man.” I disagreed with McCain’s stance on the war and lot of other stuff, but called him “decent.” Surprisingly, Klein is taking worse jabs in his comments section than I did in ours.
