Making Common Cause with criminals

Remember when good government groups were about stopping Washington insiders from helping their friends thwart the public good? Not so much anymore.

You'll recall we've been talking a lot over the past week about how John McCain is on the verge of committing a criminal act by pulling out of the public finance system, and violating its spending limits, after having used that system to get a $4m loan and to get on the ballot in numerous states? And remember how we told you that McCain's crime is punishable by a 5 year jail term? This isn't some esoteric campaign finance pledge McCain is breaking - it's the law.

Well, you might be surprised to hear that good government, pro campaign finance reform groups like Democracy 21, the Campaign Legal Center, Common Cause, Public Citizen, the League of Women Voters and U.S. PIRG have all been silent on John McCain's impending campaign finance crime.

Now why is that? I mean, sure, Public Citizen is just waking up from its 4 year nap after the last time Ralph Nader came out of his hole, ran for president, and tried to throw the election to the Republicans, so we can forgive their inaction - I mean, they did just wake up. (And in any case, Nader seems hell-bent on throwing elections to Republicans, so should we expect the group he founded to endanger yet another 8 years of rampant Republican corporate welfare over a simple thing like our potential future president being a criminal?) But what about the other groups? What possible reason could Democracy 21, the Campaign Legal Center, Common Cause, the League of Women Voters and U.S. PIRG have for suddenly not caring so much about campaign finance reform rules and presidential candidates breaking the law?

Matt Stoller over at OpenLeft got a very angry email from Common Cause after he dared ask this question. Interestingly, Common cause responded to everything Matt wrote about except the main point of Matt's post, why Common Cause was remaining silent over McCain's impending criminal campaign finance offense. Funny that.

Then again, it is understandable. I mean, these groups have been around for a while, and they've worked for years with John McCain, they've laughed with John McCain, shared the good times and the bad with him - they like John McCain, and John McCain has become their friend. They have influence with John McCain, they lobby John McCain, and they may fear losing that influence if they hold McCain as responsible for his crime as they hold other politicians for their crimes.

You see, in Washington, sometimes you have to do what's wrong to do what's right.