The Real McCain

Interesting background emerging on the Dems' call for regulators to investigate Sen. John McCain's wish to withdraw from public financing. Considerable irony here for conservatives to savor, but the Dems' posturing is especially egregious. Not only is Sen. Barack Obama blocking FEC nominees and enforcement of campaigning financing rules, gaming the system for his benefit, but get this. USA Today:

McCain and his lawyer, former FEC chairman Trevor Potter, arguet McCain is entitled to turn down the primary matching funds in the same manner as Democrats Dick Gephardt and Howard Dean did in 2004.

"We're doing exactly what Howard Dean … and what the FEC ruled in the case of congressman Gephardt," McCain said. "They said they were going to take matching funds and then they withdrew."

And of course David Brooks' recitation of McCain's alliance with Dems on some issues may pain conservatives, this one among them, but he has a point--Obama attacking McCain on being too cozy with "the special interests" won't stick:

Well, anything is worth trying, I suppose, but there is the little problem of his record. McCain has fought one battle after another against lobbyists and special interests.

I give McCain great credit for this one:

In 2000, McCain ran for president and reiterated his longstanding opposition to ethanol subsidies. Though it crippled his chances in Iowa, he argued that ethanol was a wasteful giveaway. A recent study in the journal Science has shown that when you take all impacts into consideration, ethanol consumption increases greenhouse gas emissions compared with regular gasoline. Unlike, say, Barack Obama, McCain still opposes ethanol subsidies.

Nice jab by Brooks at Barack:

This is, of course, the gospel of the mediocre man: to ridicule somebody who tries something difficult on the grounds that the effort was not a total success.

Unlike Obama, John McCain has taken on real, tough battles, not just a tough campaign.

UPDATE: McCain's bankers defend his take on the FEC rules. WaPo's The Trail:

"The loan terms were carefully drafted to exclude from the bank's collateral any matching funds," to ensure that McCain would have the "flexibility to withdraw from the program," said the letter from lawyers Matthew S. Bergman and Scott E. Thomas. Thomas, a Democrat, is a former FEC chairman.

Only "future certifications of matching funds" were pledged as collateral, the letter says -- and that would have occurred only if McCain had started to lose, which he never did.

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