June 14, 2012: McCain Criticizes Romney’s Fundraising, Says Foreign Money May be Involved

Senator John McCain (R-AZ) lambasts the campaign finance system being used by presidential candidate Mitt Romney (R-MA). McCain has been quite visible in supporting Romney, but he is not a supporter of Romney’s super PAC, Restore Our Future. McCain points out that one of Romney’s most prominent and generous supporters, billionaire casino owner Sheldon Adelson (see June 13, 2012 and Mid-June, 2012), makes much of his money from a casino in Macau, and thusly may be using foreign money to help Romney. McCain says to PBS reporter Judy Woodruff: “Mr. Adelson, who gave large amounts of money to the Gingrich campaign (see January 6, 2012, January 23, 2012, February 21, 2012, February 21, 2012, March 26, 2012, and May 2, 2012) and much of Mr. Adelson’s casino profits, that go to him, come from this casino in Macau. [That says] obviously, maybe in a roundabout way, foreign money is coming into an American campaign, political campaigns.… [T]hat is a great deal of money. And, again, we need a level playing field and we need to go back to the realization that Teddy Roosevelt had that we have to have a limit on the flow of money and that corporations are not people (see August 23, 1902 and December 5, 1905). That’s why we have different laws that govern corporations than govern individual citizens. And so to say that corporations are people (see August 11, 2011), again, flies in the face of all the traditional Supreme Court decisions that we have made—that have been made in the past.” Josh Israel of the liberal news Web site Think Progress notes, “Though it is illegal for non-citizens to spend any money to influence US elections directly, the Supreme Court’s 5-4 Citizens United ruling (see January 21, 2010) left the door wide open for the American employees of American subsidiaries of foreign owned corporations—and even sovereign wealth funds—to spend millions or billions from their corporate treasuries on ‘independent’ expenditures.” [Think Progress, 6/15/2012]