Thompson Torn to Pieces

Here, (printed in the Washington Post and linked on RealClear) George Will absolutely annihilates Fred Thompson. It is well known that Will is a Giuliani supporter and it is obvious in the article. He makes several points that bolster the anti-Thompson arguments. Will paints the picture of a cosmopolitan DC insider who is now trying to reclaim the pickup truck and flannel shirt. Although I personally don't care about a politicians personal life, it would be nice if they were at least slightly genuine.

More importantly he absolutely eviscerates Thompson on campaign finance reform. You can read it below, but the real impact is it feeds into the attack line that Thompson will hear until January (December?): he is lazy. I have no idea if he is lazy or not, but if he can't get his story straight on campaign finance then is he presidential material? The average voter may not care about losing basic individual freedoms in the name of "fairness" but the voters do care about a candidates understanding of the issues.

Here is Will's thrashing of Thompson.

Consider his confusion the next day when talk radio host Laura Ingraham asked him about something he ardently supported -- the McCain-Feingold expansion of government regulation of political speech. His rambling, incoherent explanation was just clear enough to be alarming about what he believes, misremembers and does not know.

Thompson said he had advocated McCain-Feingold to prevent, among other things, corporations and labor unions from "giving large sums of money to individual politicians." But corporate and union contributions to individual candidates were outlawed in 1907 and 1947, respectively.

Ingraham asked about McCain-Feingold's ban on issue ads that mention a candidate close to an election. He blamed an unidentified "they" who "added on" that provision, which he implied was a hitherto undiscussed surprise.

But surely he knows that bills containing the ban had been introduced in previous sessions of Congress before passage in 2002.

In 1997, Thompson chaired a Senate committee investigating 1996 election spending. In its final report, issued in 1998, Thompson's committee recommended a statutory "restriction on issue advocacy" during "a set period prior to an election" when the speech includes "any use of a candidate's name or image." And in 1999, Thompson co-sponsored legislation containing what became, in 2002, the McCain-Feingold blackout periods imposed on any television or radio ad that "refers to" a candidate for federal office -- a portion of which the Supreme Court in June declared unconstitutional.

Thompson, contrary to his current memories, was deeply involved in expanding government restrictions on political speech generally and the ban on issue ads specifically. Yet he told Ingraham "I voted for all of it," meaning McCain-Feingold, but said "I don't support that" provision of it.

Oh? Why, then, did he file his own brief urging the Supreme Court to uphold McCain-Feingold, stressing Congress' especially "compelling interest" in squelching issue ads that "influence" elections?

Most lamely, Thompson takes credit for McCain-Feingold doubling the amount of "hard money" an individual can give to a candidate, which he says reduces the advantages of incumbency. But that is absurd: Most hard money flows to incumbents.

Ingraham asked why government should be telling individuals how much they can give to fund political speech by candidates they support. Thompson replied: "Why should the government ... tell a loan officer that he cannot accept money from someone trying to get a loan from him ... and then go ahead and give that person a loan? ... I mean, it's bribery in the real world."

So he believes, as zealous regulators of political speech do, that political contributions are incipient bribes -- but that bribery begins with contributions larger than $2,300.

Death of the Two Party System

While the party system isn't dead, it is on life support.

A political party derives it power essentially in two ways: controlling both the nominating process and the money. The latter has been consistently weakened over the years. While rule changes have definitely hastened party control of the money, it is advancement of society which has cemented it. Candidates can now appeal directly to the people for money and the average American has more cash to give.

Party control of the nominating process has also been weakened in recent history, but it is now approaching code red. The Democratic party has already taken away Florida's delegate votes and now the Republican party is threatening to do the same to Florida, New Hampshire, Wyoming Michigan, and South Carolina (here). Essentially the system is in chaos.

The party may stave off this attempt but in the long run they will lose. If every state moves their primary forward will they take away all delegates? No. They can only hold the line temporarily. Also the party cannot control the Ned Lamonts and Steve Laffeys (Rhode Island) of the world from mounting primary challenges. Voter turn out in primaries have shrunk along with party enrollment making the primary electorates sufficiently extreme and polarized group to open the Lamont window.

How will this play out in the long run? Third parties will proliferate. The long run may be 50+ years, but in the end the two party system will crumble. A lot must happen to get there including loosening ballot access restrictions, redrawing ultra-gerrymandered districts, and a reversal of Buckley v Veleo (this limited individual contributions to candidates), but it is only a matter of time.

LA Times and I

I nearly agreed with an editorial from the Los Angeles Times (how scary is that?). My excitement over the by-line turned into pitched fever as I kept reading. They actually think that it a bad thing to restrict free speech. Despite their usual disdain for the restrictions of the constitution they had held their ground. My excitement turned into confusion when they began to infuse their brand of logic.

They think that there should be a “bright line” between advocacy of an internal message and others messages. In other words, the government can’t control what I think and want to say but it can control what others ask me to say.

The reason that this doesn’t make sense is grounded in their dream of making politics a clean process (think of children playing in a field with plenty of lollypops and cute puppy dogs frolicking). This is the problem with liberal ideology. It is a belief in the system, not the individual.

Why can’t I air an advertisement that says candidate X is a bad legislator and shouldn’t be reelected? The reasoning goes that I may be influenced by a dubious character to push a message or be a dubious character myself. Why is the wholesomeness of the source important? One must assume that I am influencing people in the “wrong” direction therefore causing an undesirable situation. Why can’t I influence people in the “wrong” direction? Maybe the real question is who decides what is right and wrong? I say people, not some beauraucrat, should decide.

People are free to either disagree or simply not consume my message. The editorial board at the LA Times and their elitist counterparts believe that people are not properly able to digest complex information from varied sources and come to a coherent opinion or decent voting pattern. What else would explain how George W. Bush was reelected in 2004? The only way that people could have come to such an idiotic conclusion was because they were inundated with faulty information from the evil genius and his minions.

Believing that people are too stupid to govern is totalitarian in nature and antithetical to the original concept of government of the people. If there is utility in banning certain ads then why not ban other advertisements? Shouldn’t we ask ourselves what is an advertisement? Aren’t newspaper endorsement, blog postings, and public endorsements forms of advertisements?

The “bright line” that the LA Times should be worried about is between attacking the source of speech and speech itself. There is no way to separate the two without undermining the latter. Perfecting the system clearly entails threatening the freedom of the individual which is not in the best interest of society.