Today Talking Points came across this little snippet in an article by Curt Anderson of the Associated Press:
Sen. John McCain, chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee and once Bush’s rival for the GOP nomination, said he has talked to Bush about moving campaign finance reform legislation and promised swift January confirmation hearings for Cabinet appointees.
This passage seems to imply that maybe Bush and McCain were trying to work out some sort of arrangement on this highly contentious issue. (McCain has vowed that “We will have blood all over the floor of the Senate” until soft money is banned.) That could either mean that Bush was becoming more flexible on campaign finance reform and expressing a willingness to compromise on McCain-Feingold or it could mean that McCain himself was drawing off his commitment to push forward on the bill as the first order of business in the 107th congress, no matter what. Either possibility would be quite distressing to me, err⦠Talking Points, but for very different reasons.
Talking Points would hate to see McCain, whom he admires a lot, flake on his signature issue. But he’d also hate to see Bush see the light and jump on the campaign finance reform bandwagon. Eventually Bush will have to. Because the bill will pass the Senate this year. But if Bush gets religion now he’ll miss all the anguished blood-letting and political damage he’ll earn by opposing it till the bitter end. And that would take all the fun out of it.
So Talking Points looked into it. Turns out the article is a touch misleading. McCain spoke to Bush a few days after Thanksgiving mainly about the presidential contest and also brought up his decision to push for campaign funding reform in the next congress. But Bush didn’t have anything to say on that count. So, in other words, nothing has changed! McCain’s still gonna push it; Bush is still going to oppose it.
Or at least that’s how it looks right now.
Phew!
