In Fundraising Conference Call, Edwards Camp Signals Future Attacks On Hillary

Comments (21)

dcshungu wrote on October 1, 2007 4:01 PM:

Edwards advisor Joe Trippi challenged Hillary for saying at the YearlyKos convention that she favored public financing as an idea, but would continue to accept money from lobbyists. "Will she commit to what she said?" Trippi said, challenging Hillary to opt in. "Or will she explain to the American people why she doesn't believe what she says?"

This is as ridiculous as it gets. Because they are having a hard time raising funds, they are pushing this ridiculous idea that would disarm the Dems unilaterally! Do they truly believe that if the Dems agreed to accept public financing, the Repubs would follow suit? That is the ultimate in naïveté! I am all for public financing, but until that becomes the law of the land, the Dems should never unilateral disarm by advocating that their eventual nominee accept public financing. Edwards is toast and he knows it, so he is trying to bring the house down with him. He has one shot at it: He'll put it all in Iowa and see what happens. So far, it seems that he'll be out after the 3 early states, because poll numbers there look terrible for him and he will be flat broke after that.

js wrote on October 1, 2007 4:05 PM:

Trippi is an idiot !!!

Nuf wrote on October 1, 2007 4:11 PM:

How would spending limits unilaterally disarm a candidate? The limits are on what the candidate can spend, not on what the PARTY can spend on the candidate.

colonpowwow wrote on October 1, 2007 4:18 PM:

Campaign manager Jonathan Prince said that Edwards "made a decision that he did not want to advocate for ending the problem of the corruption in our political financing" without taking meaningful action himself — that is, opting into the public system in order to prove his dedication to public financing.

In a related matter, Campaign manager Jonathan Prince said that Edwards "made a decision that he did not want to advocate for ending the problem of offshore hedge fund tax dodges per his stump speeches in the 2004 campaign" without taking meaningful action himself — that is, refusing to accept another job with Fortress Investments if he loses the primary election a second time.

Ah. What a mensch!

mopper wrote on October 1, 2007 4:41 PM:

Nuf:

spending limits "disarm" a candidate because if he spends up to the limit in a state (which will probably be near-necessary in most feb 5ths states and the 4 early-primary states) then the Repubs can attack him with impunity on the airwaves in those states until the Dem Convention, and the campaign can't fight back.

The only hope would be that 3rd parties, 527s and such, would spend on the campaign's behalf, but that still runs up to many difficulties: those parties can't coordinate with the campaign or they would be in violation of FEC law, so you're talking about Edwards' campaign itself literally unable to defend itself and simply hoping that others help him out. What's more, to the extent that those 3rd parties do help out, because of FEC laws, Edwards' campaign can't have any input on it, so he will have completely lost control of his image: the Repubs will try to paint him one way, and he cannot contest that image, nor have any say in the ads of those who will contest that image, to the extent that anybody even does contest it.

That's a huge problem. That's half the year next year!

Anonymous wrote on October 1, 2007 4:46 PM:

How would spending limits unilaterally disarm a candidate? The limits are on what the candidate can spend, not on what the PARTY can spend on the candidate.

Apples and oranges.. Under the current election law, you accept public financing you are capped, like in handicapped and unilaterally disarmed, if you opponent can raise wads of dough through donations! Google it up...

gqmartinez wrote on October 1, 2007 5:02 PM:

If Edwards had made this commitment when he first announced it would be a different story than right now. Whether or not this is because he couldn't raise enough money, the fact that he waited until now to make this announcement makes their justification ring hollow. Why wait until it's obvious you won't be able to raise the money to meet your goal?

Nuf wrote on October 1, 2007 5:36 PM:

Mopper and Anon:
So what if the Edwards campaign itself is capped? The DNC will NOT itself be capped. Once Edwards nears cap limits, start donating to the DNC instead.

jsamuel wrote on October 1, 2007 5:39 PM:

Actually, I think the reason why this came as such a surprise to everyone was BECAUSE they didn't need to do it. There seemed to be little strategic advantage to doing it as they were on target for their 40 Million goal.

I must conclude that it was Edwards' confrontation with Clinton at YearlyKos that made Edwards want to go to public financing.

Tom Wells wrote on October 1, 2007 5:47 PM:

John Edwards is the only one who can defeat Hillary the Hawk.

I am glad Edwards is going after her on lobbyists and publci financing.

The Democratic party must reform itself. We don't need two Republican Parties dominated by corporate wealth. Edwards is right: the system is rigged. The American people know it.

bigsky in Iowa wrote on October 1, 2007 5:47 PM:

So I guess the Edwards campaign is bowing to conventional wisdom (like the posters above)and reality but I thought about this announcement a little differently.

Since when did hitting the stump, bringing substantive proposals to the debate and raising $7MM become a bad thing? Yeah, he didn't raise as much as the rock stars but he still puts his message out there and at the end of the day what should we be focused on... how many bribes a candidate claimed or what they really stand for? Heysoos, what's the driver in this??? Does anyone REALLY believe that if candidate X takes money from insurance companies that she will turn around and make policy that might impinge on insurance companies?

slcathena wrote on October 1, 2007 5:55 PM:

My understanding was that Edwards was only accepting matching funds for the primary, not for the general, which makes most of the concerns above moot. He's trying to throw a gauntlet at Hillary's feet, not cripple the Dems in the general.

It's irrellevant anyway, with the amount of primary cash Obama and Hillary have, this will devestate his campaign post-Iowa. Hell, even in Iowa, he's now limited to half of what Obama has already spent. Not the best move ever.

EricD wrote on October 1, 2007 6:08 PM:

They are talking about the primary...NOT the general election.

There has been little, if any, money raised for the general election, and taking public funds for the primary does not, to my knowledge, bind one for the general election.

AJ wrote on October 1, 2007 6:14 PM:

Yeah eveyone knows paid media in May decides the Presidential election. Duh! That's why Kerry -won- in 2004

Nuf wrote on October 1, 2007 6:15 PM:

slcathena and EricD:
Edwards has accepted matching funds for only the primaries, but per FEC rules, the general election period doesn't begin until the nominating convention. So what we were debating is whether such a move will hurt Edwards in the summer months leading up to the Democratic National Convention when he will still have to abide by the spending limits in each state. My argument is that the DNC can easily pick up the slack till the Convention if necessary.

Littlesky in IA wrote on October 1, 2007 6:26 PM:

I'm an Edwards fan, but I'm still having a hard time accepting this.

1) How can the DNC respond to attacks directly against Edwards? Given that they can't mention an individual candidate, it seems that the Repubs will use that Achilles heel and come up w/ various ad hominem attacks.

2) The insistence that this was *solely* a principled decision, not one driven by necessity just sounds disingenuous. If no one believes it, it hardly makes for a good attack on HRC. I think they'd get more traction if they said "We had to do it -- because the amounts at play in this primary season so astronomically outstrip anything we've seen before in politics -- AND it's the right thing to do." How hard is that, esp. given that NOT saying just means that you lose your audience's trust.

dcshungu wrote on October 1, 2007 6:43 PM:

I seldom visit the DailyKos, but the first entry after I Googled "Edwards and public financing" led to the following gem of a post by the Master Netroot Kos himself:

Edwards: public financing for primary and general by kos Thu Sep 27, 2007 at 02:26:36 PM PDT

Boy this is stupid.

Former Sen. John Edwards Thursday said he will accept public financing for his presidential campaign, and challenged his chief rivals for the Democratic nomination, Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, to follow his lead.

"This is not about a money calculation," Edwards told CNN senior political correspondent Candy Crowley on his way to an event in Durham, North Carolina. "This is about taking a stand, a principled stand, and I believe in public financing."

Edwards is the first top-tier Democratic candidate to agree to this funding mechanism, and he noted it will include the primary and general elections. Although he has already begun raising money for the general election, federal law requires him to return those funds if he accepts public funding.

Clinton and Obama have also been raising private funds for the general election, but Obama said he would return the money and accept public funding in the general if the Republican nominee agrees to do the same.

Democrats are making huge gains in small dollar contributions, which not only mean we're forging a money lead on our Republican foes, but also getting hundreds of thousands of people personally and financial vested in the race. While there may be a pernicious effect of big dollar donations, I firmly believe that the small dollar sort are a godsend for democracy. If anything, I'd love to see the contribution limits lowered to $100. As Jeanne Cummings of the Politico note...
Any Democrat that agrees to forgo this advantage in a primary instantly suffers an "electability" hit, a misguided effort to turn a liability (relatively poor fundraising) into a positive. Obama has at least tied taking public financing to reciprocity from the Republican side, Edwards is essentially calling for unilateral disarmament.

We can't have a nominee emerging from the primaries broke and underfunded like Kerry was in 2004. This election is far too important to fight with one arm tied behind our back.

Offered without commentary, but Edwards is the darling of the netroots!

sirius wrote on October 1, 2007 6:44 PM:

Edwards is right on this. There is a public campaign financing system already in place for presidential elections. Candidates who say they support public campaign financing need to be using it. In fact, this system was originally designed, if I'm not mistaken, to be mandatory, but the Supreme Court ruled money = speech and shot this down as a free speeh issue. I guess rich people have a lot more right to "free" speech than you and I.

dcshungu wrote on October 1, 2007 6:48 PM:

In my preceding post, only the first and last sentences are mine. The rest of the post is Kos's, which did not get included in the 'blockquote'. It is scathing and right on the money really.

dcshungu wrote on October 1, 2007 6:58 PM:

If anyone still thinks that this is a noble thing to do please read this entire entry by the Kos. I find him often to be too shrill and pushy (my way or the highway) but he is right on the money (no pun intended) here: To accept public financing before it is the law of the land is exactly what I had said up top that it was: Unilateral disarmament"...

Edwards: public financing for primary and general by kos

daniel155 wrote on October 1, 2007 8:38 PM:

If Trippi thinks that he is going to use the public financing issue as a weapon against the other candidates then he is, no pun intended, tripping.

Edwards criticizing other candidates for not taking public financing is like someone who quit smoking yesterday criticizing smokers. I think he would have been better off by just quietly taking the money instead of trying to make it seem like a principled stand.

Edwards has had ample money through this process but he has not been able to come up with a reason to motivate people to support him.

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