John McCain, Hypocrite, Opts Out of Public Financing

Once upon a time, John McCain was a rare voice of integrity in the Republican Party on the issue of the corrosive influence of money on our political system. His stewardship of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, known to most of us as McCain-Feingold, was a rare moment of hope in an era marked by the wholesale purchase of our election apparatus by monied interests and the increasing inaccessibility of the political system to ordinary Americans, a time when horse race coverage has begun to focus more on the money candidates are able to raise and less on the votes they are able to earn. Inadequate and unloved, McCain-Feingold was nonetheless a necessary first step toward meaningful reform.

Well, it's time to take the McCain out of McCain-Feingold. After opting to receive public matching funds for his campaign last summer, the senator from Arizona has thrown the Straight Talk Express into reverse and opted out of the public financing system.

McCain had asked to participate in the public system last summer when his campaign, his fundraising and his poll numbers hit a low point that threatened to unravel his candidacy.

Though the FEC declared him eligible to receive $5.8 million in December, the money would not have become available until next month. By accepting the money, moreover, McCain would have been required to limit his spending for the primary to about $54 million - an amount the campaign was close to reaching now.

By not taking the money, McCain is free to raise more and to promote his presidential candidacy until the Republican nominating convention in September.

The irony, of course, is that McCain has no chance of winning in November anyway. All he's done here has been to trade in a well-earned chunk of his reputation for integrity for a pipe dream.

After spending the last six years of his life sucking up to George W. Bush, unfortunately, it was about the last chunk he had left.