Word: feingolds
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There's one thing that the mess over campaign fund raising proves. Even insincerity can reach a critical mass, that point where a heavy convergence of posturing emits a detectable unit of political substance. Something of that kind produced the chain reaction that moved the McCain-Feingold reform bill to the Senate floor last week. What it mainly required was that a President trying to sidestep his own problems bump up against Republicans briefly eager not to look like defenders of a system they have spared no effort in the past to defend...
With all the excitement, it was almost possible to forget that this was a bandwagon headed down a dark alley. In the hope of getting something passed, John McCain and Russell Feingold had already agreed to drop ideas like their offer of free television time to candidates who accept voluntary campaign-spending caps. Their bill's main surviving feature is a ban on "soft money" contributions, which pay for general party-building activities as opposed to individual campaigns. But even before the Senate debate started, Republican leaders, including Lott and House Speaker Newt Gingrich, were predicting that the smaller bill...
Even if it passes, McCain-Feingold is likely to be more useful as a solution for Washington's current embarrassments than as a defense against future mischief. Among the lawyers, fund raisers and campaign consultants who make up the city's election industry, any ban on soft money is expected simply to enhance the importance of campaign expenditures by individuals and special-interest groups. Of the record $2 billion spent by both parties and their outside supporters in campaign '96, close to $160 million came from unions and such groups as the Christian Coalition, the National Rifle Association...
...agents squeal on their bosses, they couldn't even do it without gray screens and frosted-flake voices. And while the G-men were singing like canaries, the senators were having a, er, whale of a time overturning some other sacred cows, like the FDA and the McCain-Feingold bill. The House had some trouble keeping NASA in check ? David Wolf, that dirty rat that actually wanted to go to the Mir, slipped through Rep. James F. Sensenbrenner's fingers like a stratospheric salmon...
...McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill has at last hit the Senate floor ? but the smart money says it stops there (TIME Daily...