Now It's Personal: John McCain's Attack On My First Amendment Rights

I really don't need another reason to strongly oppose John McCain for President, but now I have a really, really big one because this affects me personally I've just learned that because of McCain-Feingold, county republican parties in Georgia are being told they should no longer allow any federal campaign materials, such as flyers signs, buttons, and bumper stickers at their headquarters or festival and fair booths for display and distribution.

I happen to be the chairman of my county's Republican Party here in southern Georgia. One of the main functions of the party is to do all we can to support our candidates on all levels, from president on down to school board member. Two years ago, for example, we used county party funds to set up an information booth at a local community festival where we allowed Republican candidates to leave brochures and campaign bumper stickers, buttons, pens, literature, etc. for distribution to people who wanted them. This has been a pretty common practice all over the country ever since I can remember, and it's a general service to folks who want information on the candidates and/or who want to display their support for one candidate or another.

I remember as a college student in 1968 taking an hour long bus ride with two transfers from St. Paul, Minnesota to downtown Minneapolis so I could pick up Nixon literature and buttons at the state Republican headquarters.

Sounds pretty benign, eh? Well under McCain-Feingold, that has been deemed to be a violation of law and subject to a fine (how big a fine, I haven't yet found out). A friend of mine is a grassroots Republican activist in Florida before she moved to Georgia a couple of years ago. Recently, she was talking to a friend of hers in Florida who told her the county chairman had been advised by lawyers from the state party that they could no longer display any campaign literature from the presidential candidates, or candidates for Congress for that matter.

Why? Because McCain-Feingold limits the amount of money a party organization can spend on federal candidates to $5,000. Since each county party is considered a branch of the state party, that limit is reached pretty fast, so the safe approach is for the state to say counties shouldn't spend any money on federal campaigns. The Florida state GOP has determine that since county headquarters and fair booths are paid for by contributions, it constitutes a contribution to a campaign, and is therefore a violation of law.

When I first heard about it, I thought, "That's Florida. The party there is just taking things too far." But just a few minutes ago, I got a call from my congressional district chairman that he will not be allowing any literature from federal candidates at our district convention in April and, being a member of the state central committee, he's going to suggest that also applies to the state convention. He also said that I need to be careful not to spend a dime on any federal race, including buying lunch for a candidate or someone from their campaign. I kid you not!

Now you Democrats better pay attention because this applies to your party as well. In fact, I doubt that very many Democratic or Republican Party officials had any suspicion that McCain-Feingold was going to outlaw what has been a normal political activity of the parties since the early 1800s – getting out information about their candidates.

There are several cases working their way through the federal court system that will likely reach the Supreme Court. In fact the Court has already struck down part of the law that was used to keep Wisconsin Right to Life from running ads directed at pro-abortion candidates. But for now, most of this despicable bill, authored by the probably presidential nominee of the Republican Party, is still in effect, and it's directly affecting me… a non-paid volunteer, grassroots party activist.

Can anyone explain to me how prohibiting poltical parties from displaying candidate literature stops corruption? Am I the only one that believes this is a heavy-handed (dare I say fascist) attack on legitimate, harmless political activities?

McCain has made it very clear he will use the power of government to stifle free speech and purely legitimate political activities. I sincerely believe he would also gladly sign a "fairness doctrine" law from Congress so it will shut down Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and any other talk show host who criticized him this year. Think I'm going to far? Think about it. After all, he probably blames talk radio for stopping his the immigration amnesty bill.

Conservative friends of mine who've hopped on the McCain bandwagon think I should vote for him in the general because at least he'd better than Senators Clinton or Obama. Right now, I'm not so sure.

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