CFR Chickens Coming Home to Roost on McCain

By C. Edmund Wright 

CFR. McCain-Feingold. Campaign Finance Reform.

Whatever you want to call it, this widely heralded magic bullet for all that is wrong with our political system has failed miserably, completely and to those who saw through it, predictably. And why not? The bill, in addition to being unconstitutional, does not solve the intended problem which quite frankly -- does not really exist.

And ironically this very legislation could well prove devastating to the Presidential aspirations of its author and chief protagonist, John McCain. Obama is prepared to outspend McCain 8 to 1 in most battleground states over the next 2 weeks.



CFR, you remember, was going to cleanse our corrupt political system by taking the money out of politics. After all, we have been told ad nauseum there is way too much money in politics and it is corrupting the entire system. Every journalist, commentator and candidate says so. Must be true, right?

(yeah, like man made global warming).

Consider: the total money spent in a Presidential election year is about the same amount spent in the nation annually on chewing gum (from Freakanomics). This does not exactly rise to the level of proportionately excessive, does it? And besides, far from corrupting, most money in politics tends to follow opinions that are already shared.

However, there persists the nearly universal narrative that there is way too much money in politics buying influence. So how can this be? This is conventional wisdom, borne of the flaw  that people tend to gravitate to simple comforting explanations that are widely held. Remember conventional wisdom told us the world was flat, Mesopotamia was all that existed and there was only one meaning for the word "is."


Now admittedly, there is still the issue of campaign contributions being rewarded quid pro quo for government contracts, appointments, ambassadorships, etc. Sadly, that does happen too often. It's called human nature.
Grungy little kick back arrangements slither their way to the forefront of just about every business imaginable however. This, "my friends," is a human problem, not a procedural or political one.

In other words, the problem is SOME of the people, not ALL of the system. Capitalism suffers from some of the capitalists. Our adversarial political system suffers from some of the adversaries. But consider the alternative systems. Would you prefer a non-adversarial political system like say the Politburo or the Baath Party? The Founders knew better.

However, the worst flaw in this legislation is really the baseline premise of the movement: the idea that when you take money out of politics, you will  take the corruption out of politics. This is just totally bass ackwards -- or at least bass sideways. 



It's NOT politics that you need to worry about per se. It's POWER. Consider the historically accuarate cliché that "power corrupts. ..and absolute power corrupts absolutely." 
 Assuming CFR is an honest effort, (an assumption I do not make) its backers are attempting the impossible.

CFR is a fruitless attempt to split an atom of human nature that is just not divisible. You cannot ever -- under any circumstance -- separate money from power or power from money -- in any system for any reason for any length of time. Money and power always have and always will gravitate towards each other. If for no other reason than the relationship between power and money is almost always indistinguishable. Money and power are by definition two sides of the same coin.

But not only is the goal of CFR unattainable for that reason, I submit it is NOT DESIRABLE either.

You see, for all of it's flaws, our system has separated money and power better than any political system ever known to man. Think for a minute about the Soviet Union and all of the high minded "workers of the world unite"  talk that was supposedly foundational. I think it is safe to say that the USSR - like all totalitarian nations in history --  had a lot more concentration of power and wealth than our supposedly corrupt system. And they all were founded on class envy and the theory of "spreading the wealth"
by destroying the business class. (Joe the Plumber gets this!)

At least in our country, you can have a lot of wealth and pretty much avoid political power and circles altogether. Sure, too many GOT rich by being in the inner circle of some description - like Franklin Raines and Jamie Gorelick -- but unlike any totalitarian situation it can be done  other ways as well.

You see, the idea of forming a "more perfect union" is not to form a "perfect union" because the founders knew no such thing was possible. History shows us the utopian flaw that the best way to form a horrible union is to try and form a perfect one.

CFR and the idea behind it simply confuses a systemic problem with a moral and ethical problem. But since humans always have and always will be involved in moral and ethical problems, there is ONLY ONE SURE way to separate money from power -- and that's simply to shrink centralized power period. 

That's what we call "a more perfect union."

But for now, the man who championed CFR faces an uphill battle against an Obama campaign financed in a way not possible before CFR. And if Obama wins, then we are really going to see money and power concentrated in the hands of just a few. Ironic, ain't it?