McCain Beats Himself in Election

John McCain has been hoisted by his own petard. For those of you unfamiliar with that quaint little saying, it means that a man has been beaten by the very weapon that he planned to use on others. In this case, the weapon was Campaign Finance Reform. I capitalize the words, because I want to sound like McCain and give them the importance that he attached to them.

As the co-author of the McCain-Feingold Act in 2002, John McCain crossed the aisle, yet again, to create legislation that regulated the amount of money that could be used in a campaign, and created a 60-day "you can't say anything bad about me" prohibition, effectively banning issue ads paid for by a variety of groups. The act was known in many quarters as the Incumbent Protection Act of 2002, because it limited the amount of money an individual could contribute to a campaign, making it more difficult for challengers to unseat incumbents, who usually have a ready store of funds to draw from, provided by lobbyists and other like thinkers.

McCain's goal was to limit the amount of money used in a campaign, effectively Federalizing campaign spending. That is, if the candidates agreed to accept Federal funding.

Well, as we all know by now, McCain accepted the Federal largesse, while Obama first said he would, then said he wouldn't. WIth his wouldn't he raised some $700 million dollars, from sources largely unknown, and proceeded to beat Mr. McCain soundly in last night's election. So Senator McCain's ...ahem... chickens have come home to roost.