Come on down and join with us to hold John McCain accountable for his campaign finance lawbreaking. He's supposed to be the Straight Talker when it comes to matters of finances, but as with all BushCo Republicans, he thinks the law doesn't apply to himself. What a shock, right? Jane Hamsher went down to the FEC and fomerly handed in the complaint.
McCain has claimed he is backing off that decision, and justifies it with the fact that he never received any of that public money. However, the law clearly states that he is bound by those limits if he uses the promise of those funds in order to secure campaign loans -- something he absolutely did.
You can read the complaint here, as well as join the effort as a co-signer. The more, the merrier, so join us in this effort to hold John McCain accountable for the laws that he himself (hypocritically, it's now clear) has championed.
I signed on and hope you will too. Let's see if the media will cover this. The DNC filed a grievance already and Howard Dean spoke out about McCain's dirty deed:
Dean: This is a guy that says one thing and does another. We want John McCain to obey the law…
That's not a novel approach.
Even so, FEC Chairman David Mason sent McCain's campaign a strongly worded letter (PDF), letting them know that even though McCain didn't consider his word on accepting public financing binding, that the FEC was not about to let him off the legal hook. What did McCain do? He ignored the letter, secured a loan based on representations of obtaining public financing and then blew past the public financing law spending limits...and he's still raising campaign cash, too.
We decided that McCain shouldn't be allowed to get away with this without questions -- lots and lots of questions -- being asked. The hypocrisy of the so-called "maverick" violating a law which he championed because it suits his purposes this time around is horrifying. Even worse is the relative silence of the press on this, given the rank hypocrisy of violations of McCain's "signature" issue and all. Does it get to be your signature issue if you are blatantly violating it in an in-your-face maneuver after being warned not to by the head of the FEC? I think not.
