Now It Can Be Said: Part Two

Belmont Club sez: How much money did Obama raise during his campaign? Did he follow the rules? Who cares! He won!

Obama is expected to escape that level of scrutiny mostly because he declined an $84 million public grant for his campaign that automatically triggers an audit and because the sheer volume of cash he raised and spent minimizes the significance of his errors. Another factor: The FEC, which would have to vote to launch an audit, is prone to deadlocking on issues that inordinately impact one party or the other – like approving a messy and high-profile probe of a sitting president

Maybe the real object of pity here should be the idea of government funded campaigning. After all, McCain is political history and will soon recede into the past. But the idea that bad money could be kept out of elections by government funding has proved, if Obama’s campaign escapes scrutiny while McCain is put under the lens, to have no future. The incentives to follow the McCain funding model, rather than the disable-your-creditcard-checks model, are nil.

Does anyone anywhere expect any media to bite on this issue?