Romney with a straight face: “it’s the height of irony that the father of McCain-Feingold now has his supporters raising vast sums of money, more than regular citizens can donate, to support his campaign”—also: will someone at Team Romney please explain to the candidate what “irony” means?

November 14, 2007 in 2008, argument, campaign communications, campaign communiques, campaign finance, campaign literature, election 2008, GOP, incompetence, media, mitt romney, republicans, rhetoric, romney, strategy, stupidity, the dark soul of Mitt Romney, triumph of unreason
Tags: corruption, hypocrisy, lies, mccain-feingold, negative attacks, negativity, New Hampshire, Sen. John McCain

“Governor Romney attacked Senator John McCain today when a question regarding campaign finance came up at a morning visit to a technology company here,” reports by Shushannah Walshe from Manchester NH in Cameron’s Corner post titled Romney Attacks McCain: “It’s the height of irony”

The former Massachusetts governor was asked about McCain’s campaign finance reform bill, McCain-Feingold and Romney sharply criticized both the bill and his Republican rival, “The irony is literally dripping as you look at the formation of this C4 to support Senator McCain.” Romney focused his attack on a newly formed independent group of McCain supporters, Foundation for a Secure and Prosperous America. The organization legally does not need to release its donors’ names or contribution amounts. The group released an ad showing images of McCain and praising his support for the troops. Other footage of Republicans that the group backs is also part of the ad … etc.

The ad subversively, maliciously praises McCain’s support for our troops?—outrageous, and clearly an abuse of the intent if not the letter of McCain-Feingold. /joking

… At a later event in Concord, Romney continued his criticism calling the bill a failure and that the bill’s “intent was to reduce the impact of money in politics. It’s gotten worse not better.” The former Bay State governor added, “. . .it’s the height of irony that the father of McCain-Feingold now has his supporters raising vast sums of money, more than regular citizens can donate, to support his campaign” … etc.

Romney is concerned about “vast sums of money, more than regular citizens can donate, to support his campaign!?” This is not irony, this is hypocrisy—on Romney’s part.

• Sidoti: Romney has “already has dumped $17.5 million of his own money into his bid and could spend boatloads more to rack up wins in a squeezed primary schedule”
• Tapper: Romney Surpasses Steve Forbes’ Self-Funding Pace
• Scherer: subtract the money Romney gave himself and Romney had just as much cash on hand in June as McCain did, a little more than $3 million—”at the time, this was seen as a disastrous state of affairs for McCain, prompting the departure of his top advisors”

Comments:

(1) Romney needs to look up the term “ironic.”

(2) It is Romney who most benefits from McCain-Fiengold. But ironic is not what we would call it; a better term would be “perverse,” as in “perverse subsidies.”

(a) McCain-Feingold allows the super-rich, like Romney, to finance their own campaigns, which confers upon the few a wildly unfair advantage.

(b) McCain-Feingold allows the super-rich, like Romney to loan to their campaigns, and further allows friends and well-wishers to pay against those loans directly into the pockets of the candidate himsel—i.e. the law allows for the corruption of candidates on an assembly-line scale.

Yes, McCain-Feingold deserves censure, but not because it inconveniences poor man-of-the-people Romney, but rather because it made a Romney candidacy possible at all.

yours &c.
dr. g.d.

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