Saturday, May 26, 2007

Romney's misguided beliefs about campaign financing


Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, the star to which Missouri Governor Matt Blunt and other state officials have hitched their wagons, has attacked the McCain-Feingold campaign financing reform, a position that was criticized in an editorial in today's Washington Post:

The original intent of McCain-Feingold was to reduce the role of money and special interests in our political system. But on this too it has been a failure," Mr. Romney wrote. "Political spending has been driven into secret corners and more power and influence has been handed to hidden special interests."

No doubt, the current campaign finance system is flawed; no doubt, some spending has been shifted into areas exempt from disclosure. But if Mr. Romney thinks the system was less corrupt when lawmakers were able to phone up special interests and ask them for seven-figure checks, he is wrong. If he thinks the system was less corrupt when corporations, labor unions and wealthy individuals could spend unlimited amounts on campaign commercials barely disguised as issue advertising, he is wrong about that as well.


As I noted in the April 28 Turner Report, Romney may be critical of McCain-Feingold, but he has certainly shown no qualms about using the Blunt template (both father and son) for raising campaign money- much of the $21 million the media swooned over during his first disclosure report came from lobbyists and special interests:

An examination of Federal Election Commission documents indicates most of Gov. Romney's big contributors were lobbyists or lobbyists' spouses. A quick check of contributions from the Washington, D. C. and Virginia areas alone, showed contributions from 28 lobbyists, who gave $71,500. He received more than $10,000 from Missouri lobbyists and their spouses, including Andrew Blunt, Tony Feather, and Harvey Tettlebaum. Feather, of course, has signed on with Gov. Romney's campaign.

Those contributing to the Romney campaign include:

-Elliott Stanton Berke, former general counsel for Tom DeLay, $2,300. Berke's wife also contributed $2,300.

-Gregg Hartley, former chief of staff to Roy Blunt, $2,300. Hartley's wife also chipped in with $2,300.

-Mark Isakowitz, Isakowitz of the lobbying firm of Fierce & Isakowitz, served as host for a Tom DeLay fundraiser on Nov. 17, 2005. His firm has major nationwide clients, but also represents the Joplin Area Chamber of Commerce, the Joplin Coalition, and Greene County. Isakowitz gave $2,300.

-Craig Fuller, former chief of staff to Vice President George H. W. Bush, now a powerful lobbyist with the Fuller Group, $2,100

-Andrew Maloney, former chief of staff for Tom DeLay, now a lobbyist, $2,300

-Roy Coffee, not the sheriff of the same name from "Bonanza," but a lobbyist with ties to disgraced former Congressman Bob Ney, $2,300

-Jim Murray of DCI Group LLC, a firm associated with Missouri lobbyist Tony Feather. DCI boasts of supplying third-party support for issues, which means creating basically fictitious grass roots group to support legislation wanted by powerful special interests. Murray gave $2,300.

-Lobbyists from the powerful Patton Boggs firm contributed $16,400.

Imagine how much money Romney might have received from these lobbyists if there was no McCain-Feingold in place.

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