Difficile est satiram non scribere.
(It is difficult not to write satire.)
--Juvenal
The end of limits?
By JAMES CARNEY
Monday, September 1, 2003 Posted: 11:37 AM EDT (1537 GMT)
Striking it rich has a funny way of changing people.
Back when Howard Dean was an underfunded underdog in the Democratic race, he swore allegiance to public matching funds - the system in which presidential candidates who agree to spending limits during the primaries receive federal dollars for a portion of the money they have raised. "We've always been committed to this," Dean declared. "Campaign-finance reform is just something I believe in."
But that was five months and many millions of dollars ago. Now that he's both the front runner and the Democrat poised to raise the most cash, the doctor is reassessing his prescription.
Ultimately, President Bush may leave him no other choice. As he did in 2000, Bush is forgoing matching funds, freeing himself to spend the record $200 million he hopes to raise for the primaries - in which he is unopposed - to beat up on the Democratic nominee.
Any Democrat who accepts matching funds must cap his spending at $45 million, leaving the candidate broke and defenseless from mid-March until the party conventions in late summer, when both nominees will collect roughly $75 million in public financing for the general election.
Other things Howard Dean or his campaign will have to give up in order to compete with Bush:
--Telling American public uncomfortable facts
--Sense of shame
--Voluntary limits on number of lies told to public each day
--Hippocratic Oath
-- Lingering respect for democratic process
--Feeling awkward at boorish displays of cheap patriotic symbols
--Use of taste buds
--Lives of staff hostages held by Karl Rove
--Strict policy against mush-mouthed, imbecilic sloganeering
--Respect of family, friends
--50 IQ points
-- Soul
--All feeling in toes while campaigning in New Hampshire
--"No assassination" policy
--Cute young interns (until election)
(Remember, Kids, the part in bold is actual 100% news-flavored media product. The rest is the fakey part.)
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