Funny thing to be doing on a trip that has nothing to do with your presidential campaign and which is being paid for by tax dollars. And this from the Godfather of so-called campaign finance reform. Yeah, and let’s just not talk about the infusion of foreign money into a presidential campaign. That would be so…unreformed.
McCain Invites Fundraisers to London
Sen. John McCain and his staff have been adamant for days that his upcoming overseas trip to Britain, France and Israel is not political.
Some political staffers have gone so far as to refuse to talk about the trip with reporters, arguing it would be inappropriate to mix politics with his Senate business.
Here’s what McCain said on Wednesday when asked by a Post reporter how Europeans would respond to his vision for the presidency: “I won’t be offering them my vision because I’m going as a member of the Armed Services Committee, not as the nominee of our party.”
Apparently, though, there will still be room for fundraising.
McCain’s campaign has sent out an invitation for a March 20 luncheon at Spencer House — the neo-classical home built for an ancestor of Diana, the late Princess of Wales — “by kind permission of Lord Rothschild OM GBE and the Hon. Nathaniel Rothschild.”
PORK PIE FOR SIDNEY!
What a waste of tax dollars by “cost cutter” McAmnesty! Let’s hope they have English pork pie for his feast. Is this overseas fundraising an attempt to get around McCain-Feingold campaign finance DEform! A real “reformer”–do as I say, not as I do!
What about all this money from foreigners going to Sidney’s, Hussein’s, and Edmund Hillary’s campaigns? Not corruption of the system, but easing us into open borders globalism, no doubt. Is it legal? If so, where will it end?
Yet another reason to vote for Sydney. She’d make a far better leader than the four horsemen (Nader added to the equation).
One of the problems of the elderly. They forget where they are and the political era they are in.
I’m no McCain fan. But this seems a bizarre complaint.
Foreign money?
The money will be given by American citizens living overseas. A huge number of Americans — many Republican — live and work in London. It’s one of the great global cities.
If all money that ultimately derives from foreign sources (but is legitimately earned by US citizens — I’m not talking about foreign money that’s simply washed through contributors in the US) is banned from politics, then I suppose anyone who works for an exporter would be banned from donating.
You work for GM? I hear they export cars to Canada. Some of your salary derives from foreign sources. Sorry, no contribution for you!
You’re an American living in Toronto, just across the lake from Buffalo and you’ve had success selling US goods to Canadians? Sorry, no, your money is contaminated, we don’t want it!
That said, I don’t remotely support the idea of money from foreigners flowing into the political system (hello, George Soros). But I’ve no problem with US citizens donating, no matter where they live or where they (legitimately) earn their money.
Part of being a country that’s engaged globally is having citizens that work outside the US. I welcome that.
Holmwood, as an American who once lived in London, I heartily concur. The US expat community there is enormous, and both Republicans Abroad and Democrats Abroad have such large chapters there that’d be pretty fair to say London is the worldwide HQ of both.
End Run by Reformer?
I think the pork spending issue is that the FEC has told McAmnesty that he is bound by his own law, McCain-Feingold, and he has already spent over the government limit for primaries, and cannot spend more until the general election campaign (Bob Dole’s disease). So he goes on this overseas newsmaker campaign tour as a Senate junket at almost all taxpayer expense to try to deal with the fact that the FEC is watching his expenditures of campaign contributions. Untrue to his “reforms”?
American citizens abroad, especially troops, should be able to support candidates, AND have their ballots counted–remember Florida, 2000? But I am sure I saw that Obama and Clinton received over $90 million between the two of them in January and February, 2008. McAmnesty got $12 million. The $90 million from individual donors seems awfully high (do I smell a laundry like in Clinton’s Hsu case?), especially since the two had already brought in tons of money for many months before that. Maybe Sidney is learning how to run a laundry from Hussein and Edmund-Hillary (the Hsu is on the other foot!). Just worth checking out, I think, at LEAST as much as the religion question is. By the way, why did McAmnesty just switch from Episcopalian (my sect) to Baptist? That would be my question to ask him, as long as the media is asking religion questions. Maybe the late Falwell last year at the start of his campaign, and Hagee this year talked him into it as the price of support. Convert or die!!!
“…it would be inappropriate to mix politics with his Senate business.”
Isn’t that a contradictroy statement on its face? I thought senate business was political! Am I missing something here, or is this just Orwellian double speak for “Don’t worry your pretty little head.”?