Saturday, November 08, 2003
Doctor Out, Conniptions Ensue
It's utterly no surprise that Howard Dean has opted out of public financing of his presidential campaign. It's the only sensible thing to do, with the Democrats facing the likelihood that they will be drowned by Bush's quarter-billion dollar war chest. As I wrote earlier this week, the choice whether to accept or opt out of public funding was a choice between sure defeat and a possible defeat, which made it easy for me, and about 85 percent of the Dean faithful who voted for opting out.
The rest of the Democrats with the exceptions of Kerry and Clark have already said they will accept public financing. Dean himself said he would at one point in the campaign, but his change of heart represents a recognition of the reality of Campaign 2004: that Bush has more money than God, and that if the Democrats are going to be heard at all, they need money of their own to compete.
Dennis Kucinich's bleat on his website is typical. In a press release, Kucinich says, "The end of public financing means a tighter grip on the political process by special interests. Howard Dean has called for the people to take back America. His attempt to kill public financing will take back America--for the corporations."
That's, of course, is not really the point. The point is being able to stay competitive with Bush during six critical months of the campaign. The alternative that Kucinich supports means having NO money to campaign between March and September while Bush can spend as much as he wants. In that scenario, there's no point in running a campaign at all, because the Democratic nominee, whoever he is--even the simon-pure Congressman from Ohio--is going to lose and lose badly in November.
If Kucinich (and the other five Democrats who have made a similar pact with political death) would rather take public funds and thus lose the election than forego them in order to have a chance to win, then they ought to admit that they're running vanity campaigns and stop taking up space on stage with the serious candidates.
It's utterly no surprise that Howard Dean has opted out of public financing of his presidential campaign. It's the only sensible thing to do, with the Democrats facing the likelihood that they will be drowned by Bush's quarter-billion dollar war chest. As I wrote earlier this week, the choice whether to accept or opt out of public funding was a choice between sure defeat and a possible defeat, which made it easy for me, and about 85 percent of the Dean faithful who voted for opting out.
The rest of the Democrats with the exceptions of Kerry and Clark have already said they will accept public financing. Dean himself said he would at one point in the campaign, but his change of heart represents a recognition of the reality of Campaign 2004: that Bush has more money than God, and that if the Democrats are going to be heard at all, they need money of their own to compete.
Dennis Kucinich's bleat on his website is typical. In a press release, Kucinich says, "The end of public financing means a tighter grip on the political process by special interests. Howard Dean has called for the people to take back America. His attempt to kill public financing will take back America--for the corporations."
That's, of course, is not really the point. The point is being able to stay competitive with Bush during six critical months of the campaign. The alternative that Kucinich supports means having NO money to campaign between March and September while Bush can spend as much as he wants. In that scenario, there's no point in running a campaign at all, because the Democratic nominee, whoever he is--even the simon-pure Congressman from Ohio--is going to lose and lose badly in November.
If Kucinich (and the other five Democrats who have made a similar pact with political death) would rather take public funds and thus lose the election than forego them in order to have a chance to win, then they ought to admit that they're running vanity campaigns and stop taking up space on stage with the serious candidates.
