McCain certainly does a good job of courting the media. He lets them ask all the questions they want, invites them to barbecues and as Chris Matthews exclaims, they're practically his base. So that is why the latest piece from the Boston Globe shows how a story can be construed into favoring McCain when all the facts point the other way. Printing spin as is without framing it isn't journalism, it is just pathetic. The story below is about campaign financing and McCain's decision to return checks.
Let's take a look:
In another sign that John McCain is moving toward accepting public financing this fall, the Republican's campaign is returning about $3 million in checks to contributors who have given money for his general election campaign, funds he could not use if he opts into the public system.
McCain's campaign, in letters to contributors, is asking supporters to write new checks to a special fund created to help the Arizona senator pay legal and accounting expenses related to compliance with the public funding system.
Can you see the two problems in these paragraphs? First of all, he already opted into the public system. That directly contradicts their statement that implies he hasn't made a decision already. And no, you can not simply opt in and out as you please, it doesn't work that way. Perhaps if these journalists would have spent less time on the StraightTalk Express bus, they could have researched that little fact.
In the second paragraph, that special fund to pay legal and accounting expenses in order to comply with the system is a clever way of getting around the fact that the FEC is looking into McCain's campaign violating the rules he vowed to oblige when he opted into the system months ago. Recently the DNC filed a complaint against McCain, but this article conveniently forgets to mention it.
Then there is this:
The move is largely procedural, and McCain's campaign said yesterday that it has not yet decided whether to accept public funding or to raise money on its own for the November presidential election. But the decision to return checks - which was made as the Democratic candidates announced raising $60 million combined in March, nearly as much as McCain had raised for the entire campaign through February - indicates that McCain is laying the groundwork for doing so."Senator McCain has made it clear that he expects to participate in the general election public financing system, and he hopes the Democratic nominee will do so as well," Brian Rogers, McCain spokesman, said in a statement. "The campaign reserves the right to change course, but these developments reflect our current plans."
Moving that money around is not simply procedural, how does one swallow crap like that so readily. Without even a trace of journalistic ability, the article allows McCain's spokesman to get away with calling on the Democratic nominee to opt in (only because the Democratic side is humiliating McCain when it comes to fundraising numbers) yet it says in bold black ink that they haven't made a decision to opt in or not, despite having opted in already!! And again, there is no changing course unless the FEC allows you and they haven't granted McCain an out so far.
The article also mentions that candidates who opt in have to abide by spending limits. If they would have noted that McCain is already in the system, they might have been able to show the data that proves he has already gone over the limit for the primary season (that leads up to the convention). Of course, that is conveniently missing as well.
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