Money For Nothing

(AP (file))

That's the lesson that comes out of today's New York Times story on John McCain, whose two presidential campaigns are shaping up to be a depressing cautionary tale in the limits of "straight talk" campaigning.

I wrote in February about how the press fell out of love with McCain when he seemed to back off from his "maverick" ways – most starkly in his embrace of Jerry Falwell, whom he'd once (surely to the silent applause of many in the press corps) dismissed as an "agent of intolerance." McCain had clearly made a calculation that he had to play the traditional politician -- with all the pandering that entailed -- in order to win the Republican nomination. But in doing so, he sacrificed much of the credibility he'd earned with the "straight talk" that may have been his greatest asset.

Now, as the Times reports, he's playing a similar game with potential donors in order to keep his campaign afloat. McCain isn't getting the small donors he got in 2004, when he aggressively criticized special-interest groups, so this time around he has to win over the big guns.

The problem is that the big guns are wary: Military industry lobbyists don't like McCain for his opposition to "military procurement policies, big Pentagon contracts, and especially earmarks — the Congressional add-ons to military spending bills that contractors crave." He still attacks defense contractors on the stump. And here's the result:

At a critical moment for him, his presidential campaign may be paying the price for a career of positions seemingly calculated to alienate constituencies that according to Washington custom should be prime sources of campaign cash. Mr. McCain's campaign filings show just $61,000 from the military industry in the first quarter — less than half as much as the long-shot campaign of Democratic Senator Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

The twist is lost on no one: a candidate who has spent decades fighting to minimize the influence of money on politics is under extraordinary pressure to scare up tens of millions of dollars to prove he can jump-start his campaign. And after months of trying to make up with factions of the conservative coalition he has snubbed in the past, fund-raising has turned into another example of the balancing act he faces as he tries to appeal to the Republican establishment without giving up his aura as a straight-talking reformer.

The moral of this story? If you want to be president, you need to play by the rules. And that means refraining from making comments or votes that could alienate the industries whose support you need. If you try to change your tune at some point in order to make a pragmatic run for the Oval Office, those industries will be slow to warm to you and the press corps will hammer you for being a hypocrite.

In today's media environment, it is perhaps better to be seen as a down-the-line special interest suck up than a "flip-flopper." The press corps' coverage of McCain exposes the fact that many reporters seem more offended by those whose ideals have been somewhat compromised by the reality of modern politics than by those who never tried to take principled stances in the first place.