The Candidates
I had to miss the conference call this afternoon, but Jim Geraghty over at NRO has a great wrap-up:
The McCain camp held a conference call with Communications Director Jill Hazelbaker, Campaign Manager Rick Davis, and Trevor Potter, former FEC Chairman and John McCain 2008 General Counsel.
[By the way, how solid is the ground McCain is on when the guy making sure his FEC filings are on the up-and-up used to run the FEC?]
I joined in progress, and am fairly certain these comments were from Potter: “The bank was very clear on that yesterday, saying that they never recieved any collateral from us in the form of certificates from the matching funds program. It was clear that if any loan occurred, that no collateral in that form.”
“The law does not establish any requirement that the FEC vote to allow someone out… We don’t object to the commission voting, and they’re welcome to do that. But we don’t believe that it is required as a matter of law.”
Q: Would have McCain have been able to get the loan without the possibility of matching funds?
Potter: “It’s a hypothetical. We won’t know. It’s a question for what’s inside the banker’s brain, rather than inside our brain. We said, ‘we are likely to withdraw from the system… if we can financially withdraw from that system, we will. The bank knew that was a possibility.”
Rick Davis: “The way we read that wasn’t a commitment for collateral. They’re a bank, they’re not in the business of running campaigns. They wanted to know ‘what happens if.’”
Potter: “They had loaned us the money based on our projections of income and expenses. If we had put up the matching funds as collateral, we could have gotten a larger loan, probably twice the size.”
Rick Davis: “We’re not dealing with a vulnerability of law or ethics, we’re dealing with a political issue. That’s why I’m on this call - if was an issue of law, I would defer to Trevor. Obama started this attack, saying we were run by lobbyists. I would dare say that they have as many lobbyists on their campaign as we do. Then we had this hypocritical comment by Dean. We’re happy to debate ethical standards and commitment to reform all day long.”
Davis points out that McCain pushed for CFR after it had failed nine times. Once he was chair of the Indian Affairs Committee, he held hearings on Jack Abramoff. He went after Boeing on a procurement scandal in the defense budget.
“We hear a lot about change, but we see few people willing to spend their own political capital on actually changing things.”
Update: Matt Lewis also recaps the call-
McCain’s team made the point that McCain is essentially doing the same thing Howard Dean did in 2003, when he withdrew from the matching funds system. As you may recall, Dean decided to forgo the matching funds based on an online vote of his supporters. Davis scolded the media for buying the Democrat’s argument:
“I think you guys totally took the debate from Howard Dean and totally got sucked into a debate that he’d know something about …”
Potter argued the Supreme Court has concluded that public financing is voluntary, and as such, candidates have a constitutional right to withdraw from the program. Refuting Dean’s argument (that it was okay for him to opt out of the system because the FEC voted to allow him out of the system), Potter pointed out that the FEC could not possibly vote to allow McCain out of the financing — even if they wanted to — because there are four vacancies, thus denying them a quorum. (Guess who is blocking confirmation of one of the FEC appointees?)
Potter says that simply by sending the FEC Chairman a letter on February 6, saying that he wants out of the system, McCain was released.
Putting aside the legal argument that both McCain and Obama are making, I think it’s obvious to anyone paying attention that Howard Dean is attempting to pull off a dirty trick that would result in McCain not having a fair chance to compete.
The fact that Dean, himself, did the same thing makes it all the more hypocritical. And the fact that Dean argues that it was okay for him — because the FEC voted to allow him to opt out — while knowing the FEC cannot meet to vote to allow McCain out, should they want to — makes this look politically expedient, and too cute by half.
February 26th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
I think this conference call raises more questions than it answers and that’s because the basis for the loan makes no sense. Potter said “They had loaned us the money based on our projections of income and expenses.” Problem is, the campaign was nearly broke and had wasted a ton of money. McCain was losing to Romney in NH at the time of the loan. I simply do not believe a bank would provide a campaign in desperate straits an uncollateralized $5 million loan.
February 26th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
Hello, Kavon–
I was only able to join the call for the last two questions, so thanks for posting the wrapups…
Here’s the official statement from Jill Hazelbaker, that was sent out on Monday around 5 PM - maybe this might be of interest - BTW - how do I do that blue-shading for block quotes?
McCain Campaign Communications Director Jill Hazelbaker:
“The Federal Election Commission (FEC) has repeatedly held that candidates who enter the Presidential Primary Matching Funds System have a right to withdraw, provided they do so before the United States Treasury pays them the funds and provided they do not use the matching fund certificates they hold as collateral for a loan. The campaign has been paid no funds by the United States Treasury and never used the certificates issued by the FEC as collateral for its bank loan. Previous candidates in this situation include Democratic National Committee Chair Howard Dean, who entered and then withdrew from the primary funding system in the 2004 election, and Congressman Dick Gephardt, whose campaign obtained an advisory opinion from the FEC in 2003 stating they could withdraw from the system and then re-apply for re-entry. The right to withdraw from the system is a constitutional right, which prevents the FEC from blocking Senator McCain’s withdrawal without cause.
“Senator McCain notified the FEC and the United States Treasury of his withdrawal from the system in a letter dated February 6th. The current dispute is simply over whether the FEC has to take any action in response to the withdrawal notice. It is clear to the campaign, as it is to a number of FEC experts, that no FEC action is necessary in response to Senator McCain’s notice of withdrawal given the constitutional nature of the right. In our view, the Senator’s letter is all that is legally required to exit from the system. FEC Chairman Mason, who does not represent the official view of the Commission due to the current lack of a quorum, has written a letter to the campaign in which he states his belief that the FEC must formally vote to accept the withdrawal. In either case the result is the same: the campaign will be out of the public funding system either because of the letter sent on February 6th, or because of a future vote by the Commission acknowledging the letter.
“Nevertheless, the campaign is fully responding to Chairman Mason’s request for information and is confident that the new commissioners, when appointed and confirmed, will take whatever action they conclude is necessary to confirm Senator McCain’s withdrawal from the system as of February 6, 2008.â€
Thoughts?
February 26th, 2008 at 5:45 pm
what? no mention of mccain using his donor list as collatoral?
February 27th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
In most states, in order to be on the ballot, you must either submit a specified number of signatures petitioning for the person
to be added on the state’s primary ballot or you must receive Federal Matching Funds. Because McCain was planning on accepting
Matching Funds through the summer and fall of 2007, his campaign decided to not spend the resources to collect signatures in Ohio
and Delaware.
Assuming that it’s legal for Senator McCain to break his agreement with the FEC without permission (which it’s not), the man has
two difficult choices. First, he can stay on the Ohio and Deleware ballots and probably win most of those delegates but be
required to stay within the spending restraints set up by the FEC. Or, Senator McCain can hand those delegates over to Huckabee
and hope to lock up the nomination further down the road.
February 27th, 2008 at 6:02 pm
Uhhh #4 - If what you say is true…and I don’t know if it is….why wouldn’t he hand them over to Mitt, someone endorsing him and ready to campaign for him….rather than Huckabee, the Saturday Night Live ace?
As a McCain supporter, Huckabee would be the last one that he would ask his people to vote for if this pans out to be correct.