My Beef With McCain

In a word: the Constitution.

More than any other consideration, I want a candidate that loves the Constitution. A President (and Congress, and Judiciary!) that will function within the limits that it places on their power.

I'm not convinced that McCain values the Constitution much at all. Consider the McCain-Feingold "campaign finance reform bill." It places limits on free speech. But not just any free speech, it limits who can say what about politicians during elections, just when people need to be the freest to say what they think about who ever happens to be running!

Consider this from Reason Online:

Item—In June, the FEC ruled that the Bill of Rights Educational Foundation, an Arizona nonprofit corporation headed by a conservative activist named David Hardy, could not advertise Hardy's pro-gun documentary (The Rights of the People) on television and radio during the pre-election season...

Item—On September 9, the FEC ruled that a conservative group called Citizens United was not a "media organization" and therefore could not use unrestricted money to broadcast ads marketing a book and film critical of Democratic presidential candidate...

Item—Also on September 9, the FEC ruled that the Ripon Society, a Republican group, could run TV ads touting the anti-terrorism efforts of "Republicans in Congress" because no political candidate was referred to in the ads...

Item—That day, the FEC also ruled that a Wisconsin car dealership, called the Russ Darrow Group, could continue using its own name in its car ads during the election season. ... [The] dealership's ads were not "electioneering" because they did not feature the candidate himself. ...

McCain didn't just sponsor this law (passed in 2002 and upheld by the Supreme Court in 2003), it's got his name on it. This says a lot to me. I don't want a man in the highest office in the land that doesn't mind tearing apart the Bill of Rights.

Reason Online continues:

Worries about free speech, however, have proved all too well founded. "We're heading into a new era," says Smith. "You get less protection talking about your congressman than for Internet pornography sites or burning a cross outside a church or topless dancing."
Astonishingly, the Supreme Court, which many in Congress had counted on to overturn the Wellstone amendment, instead ringingly ratified it. And so the law of the land now sharply circumscribes what is arguably the most important of all civil rights in a democracy: citizens groups' right to criticize politicians. "What the Supreme Court has done," says David O'Steen, the executive director of the National Right to Life Committee in Washington, "is make it possible for these guys to set limits on how and when they're criticized."

Read the whole article here.

I like McCain a whole lot better than I like Obama. And I'd be a whole lot more tempted by the Republican ticket if Palin was going for the Presidency rather than the Vice-Presidency. I like what I've seen of her. But with McCain at the top of the ticket I'm still in the market for a candidate that I can support.