Comments on: McCain Wiggles On Public Financing

By: StockBoySF

StockBoySF — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 22:39:15 +0000

"But it is useful to understand the manipulations behind the public face."

You're absolutely, dead-on right. There will be manipulations by all politicians.

Thanks for the post. It's important for people to be understand that some manipulations may be necessary while other manipulations (such as stealing delegates) are just plain wrong, if not evil.

I'm interested to see if there are more responses to this post, if nothing else than to say, "His behavior is fine" or, "McCain is a hypocrite" or something else.

By: PaulSilver

PaulSilver — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 18:44:55 +0000

StockboySF,
I agree and that is why I characterized this as “wiggling” rather than my over reacting and calling it hypocrisy, betrayal, or sometimes more inflammatory.
But it is useful to understand the manipulations behind the public face.

By: StockBoySF

StockBoySF — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 16:12:13 +0000

I'm not a McCain supporter, but I don't have a problem with this. He needs to compete on a level playing field and this is actually pretty smart of him.

If his rival- Obama or Clinton- pledged to use public financing, then what McCain did would deserve criticism. But neither Obama nor Clinton will use public financing so McCain needs to follow the same.... tactics... as them.

Sometimes before you can change the system you have to use it.

Yeah, it's not exactly an "honorable" move on his part, but it's not like he's trying to game the system by stealing other candidates' pledged delegates.