Sen. McCain

Senator John McCain isn’t done lambasting and insulting the Roberts 5 for their decision in the Citizens United case. Not by a long shot.

Here’s the meat:

Senator McCain: I think there will be scandals as associated with the worst decision of the United States Supreme Court in the 21st century — uninformed, arrogant, naive. I just wish one of them had run for county sheriff. That’s why we miss people like William Rehnquist and Sandra Day O’Connor, who had some experience with Congressional and other races, with the political arena.

David Gregory: Do you think Adelson himself will have undue influence on Mitt Romney?

Senator McCain: Not any more than other people who give lots of money. Not any more than the trade unions, the labor unions have. [...] The whole system is broken and is awash. I don’t pick out Mr. Adelson any more than I pick out Mr. Trumka. So, the fact is that the system is broken. I predict to you that there will be scandals and I predict to you that there will be reform again.

The relevant portion begins with David Gregory’s question around 9:48:

Now let’s break down the Maverick’s message.

On the point of union dues paying for political messages, there have been a number of court rulings and amendments to both the Fair Labor Standards Act and the Federal Election Campaign Act over the decades to enforce segregation of funds for legitimate labor organizing activity from funds for political activity and, even in those rare instances where all employees must pay union dues by contract, none are compelled to become members of the union and non-member dues cannot be used for political purposes. While it’s important to remain non-partisan in this struggle and unions should be subject to the same standard as any other legal fiction, the thirty-plus year decline in union membership and the obvious decline of their political power makes this a boogieman that is truly on its last legs. Your party destroyed American labor, John. Congratulations on a job well done!

Also, Senator McCain is concerned that President Obama is not unilaterally disarming and setting a higher moral standard for the country as he gets carpet-bombed by Romney. OK. Whatever.

Setting aside the usual partisan Lord of the Flies stuff about Obama this and Obama that, the take away for our purposes is the core conservative message of rooting out corruption in the electoral process. The Democratic party was such a Tammany Hall machine for so long that the roots of modern anti-corruption crusading are truly conservative in origin. But Corporate “conservatives” have adopted a brand of corruption all their own — not surprisingly, a much more privatized version of Tammany Hall — but it’s largely the same graft and payola as ever. People like Senator McCain can be instrumental in reminding the conservative rank and file that moral purpose is about process as much as it’s about outcome.

Repealing Citizens United is conservative!