Word: reformer
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...years, John McCain had imagined how the Last Battle would be fought, how he would be tested if campaign finance reform actually came to a vote on the floor of the U.S. Senate. Ever the rebel among his risk-averse peers, McCain would have to do some things he had never been much good at, cut some corners, play the inside game, be a dealmaker - be more like them in hopes of making them more like him. And then, once he had bullied and cajoled and converted his colleagues, he would have to do something even harder. He would have...
...from corporations, unions and the wealthy. By the end of the week the Arizona senator, his sidekick, Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, and their merry band of china breakers actually had victory in sight - a victory that could lead to the most dramatic campaign finance overhaul since the post-Watergate reforms of 1974. McCain-Feingold's reforms are so sweeping, in fact, that no one can be sure of what will happen after this week. The House will get its turn, and there are lots of anxious lawmakers on both sides who have reason to kill the bill before it kills...
...really want to reform the system, Wellstone argued, you can't just shuffle the money from parties to outside groups. It wasn't enough to limit issues ads by unions and corporations in the last weeks of a campaign; he proposed extending the limits to all advocacy groups, from the Christian Coalition to the Feminist Majority Foundation. But any limit on political speech makes First Amendment purists queasy, and his amendment, reformers feared, would never pass constitutional muster. And that might one day be all it would take to kill the entire bill - if the Senate passed a "non-severability...
...been doing that job for McCain for 17 years. He became so adept at rooting out legislative pork that McCain calls him "the Ferret." Listening to other staff members gossip on Monday afternoon, Buse picked up his first hint of trouble. Both McConnell and Texan Phil Gramm, another reform foe, were going to vote with Wellstone. Why would Gramm and McConnell vote with a liberal? Suddenly Buse understood: Wellstone's amendment was a poison pill, with the potential to kill the whole measure. He rushed to warn McCain...
...strange alliance of pro- and anti-reform purists - 27 Democrats and 24 Republicans - passed Wellstone's amendment. Never the most skilled inside player, McCain realized he had been blindsided. He began to suspect that even Democrats who had voted with him, like Minority Leader Tom Daschle, were secretly against him. The next morning, as he boarded the little subway train that runs between the Senate office buildings and the Capitol, McCain was muttering, as much to himself as anyone, "Game face...