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Anne McBride & Ellen Miller:
Twin Bimbollectuals Playing God
Anne McBride - Selling nightmares disguised as pipedreams
Ellen Miller - wanna-be McBride
Thursday, September 25th 1997: I'm convinced. Democrats are suicidal. Honestly, I have to do a reality check every time I hear a Democrat whine about campaign finance, soft money, and backing thought control in America. Where have these people been sleeping? It seems to me that without soft money and issue advocacy the Donkeys might be deader doornails then they are. Certainly there wouldn't be a Democrat in the White House, and just maybe the Congress would be more Republican weighted than it is.
Look, as anyone who reads my columns regularly knows, I have little respect for conservative Republicans and most often take the side of Clinton/Gore and Democrats in general. It's not really because I'm a party liner, it's more because I can think. I'm convinced that aside from the brilliant but absolutely insane ravings of Newt Gingrich, the Republican Party is nearly devoid of intelligence. One thing they have accomplished is pitting the haves against the have-nots. To me that's untenable.
But this week I find myself cheering for Utah GOP Senator "Weird Bob" Bennett who normally reminds me of Dr. Kevorkian - on a good day. Bennett has little patience for the likes of the twin "femunist" horrors Ellen Miller, Director of something she calls "Public Campaign" and Anne McBride the aging blonde centerfold of Common Cause. McBride's biggest accomplishment in campaign finance reform thus far is attracting scholarly actor Alec Baldwin to her cause. So much for that.
If McBride and Miller had their druthers we'd all be paying the $2 Billion bill for 600 or so congresspeople and their 800 or so opponent's campaigns. Then they'd move on and have us pay another $4 billion so state and local pols could whoop it up on television and stuff our mail boxes full of election year pap -- on our tab. But what McBride doesn't understand is that big money will just keep moving down the ladder, always trying to control the outcome until it reaches elementary school children who'll be tapped as future candidates by the likes of Dwayne Andreas or Roger Tamraz. In short, if you can't influence congressional or presidential candidates, then buy those people that might become candidates in the future.
Senator Bob Bennett - Making Sense for once
If that doesn't convince you to keep the system open and free then maybe the Senator Bennett's comments re McBride and Miller will:
"I think you are profoundly wrong and leading us in a direction that could be disastrous."
It's "censorship," he said, "for the federal government to get involved in determining who can speak and when they can speak and how they can speak. The Supreme Court has said over and over that in today's world, money is speech. Political money is speech. The days when Abraham Lincoln can walk his congressional district and shake hands with every voter are over."
You're darn right Bob. But that's just what the Ms's"Goodie Two Shoes" want. They want to control free speech by telling us when, where and how much to spend on getting out the message -- until there is no message left.
Ed Crane - The Cato Mentor
Cato Institute President Edward H. Crane, an elitist himself, also scored big with me when he said:
"This is an issue of who controls the political process in American -- the government or the people. There is a disturbing theme in the pronouncements of self-described public-interest groups that invariably chills political debate, reduces information available to the public and protects the political class from outside competition."
In plain English Crane says Hey! You don't represent anyone but yourselves. You're worried that someone might have more clout than you do. So you put on the mantle of "the people" although they haven't given it to you, and then you dare to take away their freedom.
Here's the McBride/Miller argument in another context -- Publishing. Taking their logic a step further, why not ban all newspapers and magazines? Why should we allow wealthy publishers and editors to try and control our thoughts, influence policymakers, dictate the way we view things, dare to endorse candidates? Better yet, let's ban ALL advertising. Isn't that thought control paid for by big business trying to brainwash us into buying their stuff. Yeah, and while we're at it lets get rid of radio and television. Station and network owners who spend $200 billion a year influencing our society.
"It's a bad thing," paraphrasing Martha Stewart.
But what about the nuts and bolts logic?
Only in the last decade have Democrats begun to master what was once the stronghold of the GOP -- great cash raising talent. Before 1986, Democrats didn't even use computers, their direct mail programs were a shambles, and earnest corporate outreach was only beginning. I know, I was there. But today, the DNC can match the RNC tit-for-tat, yet Democrats are hysterically dedicated to lopping off their own heads.
Why? I don't know.
Democrats only trailed Republicans by a small percentage raising soft money in the 95/96 election cycle. So why would they want to ban it? Are Democrats admitting, without admitting, that they do favors for big donors as a quid pro quo for campaign cash? No, yet they zealously pursue a ban on such contributions. Well, if politicians don't offer favors to heavy hitters then what's the problem?
McBride/Miller are absolutely accusing the Congress and the President of lying, obstructing justice, taking bribes and making national policy in exchange for money. Pure and simple. There's no other reason they'd be so concerned about money in politics. So, show us the proof. They can't because they have none.
I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe politicians do make policy based on the wishes of the wealthy. As a matter of fact, they often do. But banning soft money, limiting expenditures for campaigns, or any other harebrained schemes Common Cause can come up with will do absolutely nothing, nada, nil, to stop that. Mcbride and Miller, unless they're idiots know this. So Senator Bennett was wrong in congratulating them for their "good intentions."
There's nothing good about them. McBride and Miller are just like the people they criticize. They take money from the rich by way of their foundations and elevate themselves to "representatives of the people." Yet, no one elected them and no one asked them to carry the mace of freedom. I, for one would choose Pamela Anderson for that chore.
Click here
Visit Common Cause's web site. Look at the rash charges and unproved allegations they make. Explore the witch hunt mentality of these people and you'll soon realize that the cure is worse than the disease.
These same do-gooders are also going after independent advocacy groups. People like labor unions, the Christian Coalition, and any other issue-oriented group that exists or can be invented to support one side or the other. Such groups have increasingly sponsored advertising benefitting candidates.
Here's what Susan Collins, Queen of Republican illogic says about independent groups:
Senatress Susan Collins- Equating her politcal ads with phony issue ads
"I think it's a really critical issue, because I think what's going to happen once we ban soft money ... that the money could very easily just move over to these phony issue advocacy ads which are really political ads, and if that happens we won't really have gotten at the problem."
Hey Susan, wake up! The Republicans have more independent advocacy groups advertising for them then do the Democrats.
McBride added that the growth of independent groups sponsoring issue ads was "perverting democracy." -- as she was simultaneously doing so herself:
"What is happening with issue ads is fundamentally altering the electoral system in this country -- this is behind the corruption issue -- and what you will have is a situation that continues where candidates are bit players in their campaign and where the American people looking at the candidates will not know what they stand for," she said.
Anne, hate to tell you, but democracy is about ideas, not idolatry. Elections aren't a personality contest -- although that's how you'd like to have it and why you recruit movie stars to legitimize your position.
One can only have nightmares over what American policy might look like if politicians were answerable to no one. And that's the way it would be under the McBride/Miller plan.
In seeking to even the playing field, Common Cause is actually destroying it. Miller and McBride want to see a system eventually funded purely from government funds. Imagine such a system: where politicians make the rules and appropriate the money necessary to win, and; where politicians demand and get free television, radio and print to make their cases. Imagine a system where no one has the right to influence politics.
If you can do that, then you recognize that McBride and Miller are misguided and merely seeking to realign the power structure appointing themselves as guardians at the gate for people too busy raising their families to care about fast track trade agreements or telecommunications policy.
If you think that America has grown and prospered under the present system, then why in God's name would you want to change it into some aging hippie's vision of Utopia?
A country ruled by Anne McBrides.
It makes me shudder.
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