I like Kos, but he isn't always right. His opinion is respected around the blogsphere, but it is just that... his opinion. Now, one problem I have with Kos' declaration of a possible catastrophe is that it has no previous instance to back up his assertion. For this, lets go to the wolf...
Neil the Ethical Werewolf
I doubt that the spending caps that come with public funds will cripple Edwards in the general election, as Ezra and Markos think. We aren't talking about a congressional campaign here -- we're talking about a race for president, where free media and ads from 527 groups are going to be way more significant than anything the candidates themselves put on air.
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This really gets to my point. We have data and polls on electability showing John Edwards to be the most electable. Then we have what Kos thinks may happen.
"We must not allow a mineshaft gap!"
As for big money in politics...
"There were those of us who fought against it... We were afraid of a Doomsday Gap... Our source was the New York Times."
"I wish we had one of those" indeed! Do we want big money out of politics or not? Should we build a Doomsday machine to protect us from the Republican's Doomsday machine? I argue no. Not having a doomsday machine is not the same as unilateral disarmament.
Kos himself said this issue is about electability. Well, electibility isn't made up of just advertisement money.
John Edwards simply does best against the Republican candidates in general election polls. My diary addressing this from Saturday:
John Edwards Destroys Giuliani Nationally 50% to 41%
John Edwards 50% to Rudy Giuliani 41%
John Edwards 49% to Fred Thompson 39%
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_2008_edwards_vs_giuliani_and_thompson
For comparison:
Clinton 48% to Giuliani 43%
Clinton 49% to Thompson 41%
http://rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_2008_clinton_vs_giuliani_thompson
Obama 47% to Giuliani 42%
Obama 47% to Thompson 41%
http://rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_2008_obama_vs_giuliani_and_thompson
Richardson 40% to Giuliani 43%
Richardson 41% to Thompson 42%
http://rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_2008_richardson_vs_giuliani_and_thompson
And as evidenced by mulitple diaries and polls, John Edwards clearly is leading in most battleground and Southern state polls as well. For a great example of this, see be inspired's diary.
Rasmussen Reports chimes in on electability:
Edwards typically outperforms other leading Democratic hopefuls in general election match-ups
...
Still, Edwards currently leads the top four Republican candidates by an average of nearly nine points. Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton leads the top GOP hopefuls by an average of six points while Barack Obama holds an average lead of five points (see a summary of general election match-ups and other key stats for all Democratic and Republican candidates).
Now, the point I am trying to make:
Since John Edwards already is more electable than his Democratic rivals in the general election, does Kos' assertion hold water? If we take the worst case scenario where public financing is going to "sap... all of our precious bodily fluids," would that even be enough to erase the four points that John Edwards already has over his Democratic rivals against the Republicans?
http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=7091655
We don't know the answer to that question, but we can look to past examples the best we can to make predictions for the future. If we look at the 2004 election, John Kerry took a big hit during the summer but the money that hit him didn't come from George W. Bush (at least not directly), rather it came from a 527 which is immune from the advertising spending cap. John Kerry is one of my favorite senators, but all the money in the world didn't get Kerry to effectively fight back against these attacks. The fact is that effectively defending oneself and attacking opponents depends more on the candidate than on their money. For example, Barack Obama with all his money has been criticized for his inability to attack Clinton while John Edwards was praised at the last debate for how successful he was at it. And he did not need a multi-million dollar ad campaign to do it.
Neil the Ethical Werewolf
The most significant ads of election 2004 weren't put out by a campaign, and they didn't hit a candidate who was bound by spending caps. They were the Swift Boat ads, issuing from an independent 527 group and going on air after the Democratic convention. Especially on the negative side, 527 ads are better than candidate ads, because the candidate doesn't have to take responsibility for them. If Edwards winning the nomination means that you and I get to pick the pro-Edwards (or anti-whoever) ads of spring and summer by funding our favorite 527s, that's fine with me.
So by looking at 2004, we see that the biggest hits came from outside the public financing structure. And remember, the spending caps only apply to advertising.
At some point, we must look at what John Edwards as a candidate brings to the table that would make the advertising spending limit not so important.
Neil the Ethical Werewolf
A presidential candidate -- even one who can't run his own ads -- is one of the most-watched human beings on the planet. Free media opportunities are all over the place. If Edwards wants to hit back against an opposing ad, he just has to go on Larry King's show. And if there's anything that the Edwards campaign has been good at in the Trippi era, it's free media. From the Hair video to the poverty tour to the constant shower of policy proposals to the clear and powerful distinctions between himself and Hillary that caused most observers to call him the winner of the last debate, Edwards has been able to maintain the media profile of a first-tier candidate, without the first-tier money. If there's a campaign that can win the free media game, it's the one that Joe Trippi is running.
With all the punditry over the strategy of public financing, the benefits of what it does are being ignored. At YearlyKos ALL of the candidates endorsed Public Financing as the way to get rid of the special interests. The problem is that we don't want to replace corporate Republicans with Democrats beholden to the same corporations. We have seen the impact big oil and big pharma has on the Republicans and even on the Democrats (anybody remember the energy bill from this year). We cannot assume any Democrat will bring the big bold change we need. We must make sure that we know which one is going to take us there. Public financing takes this money away and frees John Edwards from any corporate entanglements, unlike his Democratic rivals. John Edwards will end the game and end the war.
My response to Kos
There is a problem here.
This site exists to elect Democrats.
However, there has also been the goal of electing GOOD Democrats and cleaning house.
Kos admits that John Edwards is right on the merits. Public financing does what we all want, it takes the corporate money out of our elections.
This is the definition of cleaning house. John Edwards is as clean and as GOOD a Democrat as they come.
However, Kos and some other A-list bloggers are deathly afraid of TAKING A CHANCE! The gate-crashers have only crashed one of the gates and are now scared to crash the next one.
Money does not mean everything Kos. We killed Repubs in 2006 and we did NOT have a big money advantage. Money helps, but it does not win elections. Candidates like Jim Webb, John Tester, and John Edwards win elections. Will DailyKos be left following someone else through the gates?
So how about we have some courage?
...
Don't wait...
Donate!
http://www.actblue.com/page/4edwards4progress
Donate and your first $250 will be DOUBLED thanks to Public Financing!
Updated - A response to Kos' response:
Kos has respectfully responded with a post about public financing. I cannot write two diaries in one day, so I must update the one I have.
He supplies more predictions about public financing:
Tying one arm behind our back
If there's one thing we've learned from Republicans, it's that they always bring a howitzer to a gunfight, while Democrats don't even bother bringing a knife -- they bring a spork.
First off, I disagree with the analogy. Public financing is more analogous to tying your middle finger to your pointer finger. It may look a little strange, but what difference does it make? When you point, you use two fingers instead of one.
The truth is that the state spending cap only applies to advertising in the states, otherwise John Edwards presidential campaign would be as well funded as any other campaign not using public financing. One thing people are overlooking is that John Edwards has promised, in the spirit of the 50 State Strategy which has been supported so strongly on DailyKos and by the DNC, to campaign in all 50 states. If you realize that, he can spend his money during these 6 months laying the groundwork for CONGRESS and SENATE victories while simultaneously forcing the Republicans to defend their own turf from his campaign taking over "red states." The DNC will surely be willing to help pay for a presidential campaign to raise the awareness of their candidates in districts that badly need it. Really, we will see a completely different general election campaign than we have seen since JFK visited all the states when he ran for President.
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