When You Wish Upon a Star...

True to form, the smug WSJ takes on a familiar foe today:

"Nearly halfway to choosing the next President, voters are witnessing an amazing spectacle in addition to the Barack Obama-Hillary Clinton scrum. All three of the contenders are avowed believers in ever more restrictive and convoluted campaign finance laws. They are also proving, with their every decision, why those laws have become a national farce."

Yep.

Given my well known distaste for piety and self-righteousness, it is no surprise that I find little favor with something usually described as "campaign finance reform," though not often enough in quotation marks.

Joe, erstwhile blogger here at UA and top supporter of Wisconsin Democratic senator Russell Feingold, has long defended limiting money raised and spent in a political campaign on the grounds that "money is not speech." Now, I admire Senator Feingold in some ways and could vote for him on a national ticket (though never in a primary), but his "reform," the late-1990s "big idea" with Mad Mac of Arizona, has failed. And it should have.

Yet, for whatever reason, liberal upon liberal lines up behind this legislation, because, well, money is the ultimately evil of presidential politics. They point us to the debacle of 1972, when "Don" Nixon romped to victory over Senator George McGovern due at least in part to an obscene financial advantage, most of which he had accrued via illegal contributions. You have to search far and wide for a liberal, such as Floyd Abrams, who does not believe that US spending on elections equaling that of Easter candy qualifies as an outrage.

"The Reformers Who Ruined Politics" is absolutely correct to point out the ridiculous knots the three major candidates have tied themselves into over the course of the campaign. Barack Obama is the greatest fundraiser of our generation, trumping both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, but yet part of his ideology is an appeal for more campaign finance laws.

"Scores of good potential candidates won't run because they can't stomach the endless wheedling required to raise campaign cash in $2,300 chunks."

Especially if they must challenge an incumbent senator or representative, or the individuals that spend more time raising money than anything else.

We see now, as if we somehow could not then, the inherent fraud of so-called 527s, the "independent" political groups exempt from the 2002 law.

"Between 2002 and 2004, spending by 527s more than doubled to $653 million, according to the Center for Public Integrity and the Center for Responsive Politics. At least $177 million of that came from 52 individuals who donated more than $1 million each. Total spending by independent political groups is expected to approach $1 billion by the end of this election."

I don't know about you, but I'm shocked! I thought McCain-Feingold would clean up American politics, as opposed to, say, allowing any American the right to donate to any campaign so long as we have full disclosure and can fairly evaluate the candidates. It is right to look suspiciously upon candidates heavily funded by interest groups or wealthy barons, yet these folks influence campaigns anyway, just as water will almost never encounter an air-tight seal. It finds a way.

Coda...

"The Founding Fathers would have had no trouble detecting the absurdity of having political actors determine what does or doesn't constitute free political speech. The First Amendment was written precisely to deny politicians such control. The Supreme Court has nonetheless upheld the idea of limiting campaign contributions on grounds that it would reduce 'corruption.' But after 30 years of contrary evidence, the Justices should revisit that fanciful notion. Money is required in modern America to amplify political speech. Attempting to limit or ban money merely gives the advantage to those best able to game the rules, or to the news media that can make nonfinancial 'contributions' via endorsements."

Of course, if we did this, and remember that the WSJ op-ed page frequently stands alone, the Old Cranky Lady would be "saddened" and "distressed" and "demand" some thing or another from their cocoon. But we can't, because admitting failure on a "noble" issue is impossible, so we must continue to regulate political speech until, perhaps, ironically, akin to the Laffer curve, we do so to such an extent to where the "reform" actually works. Who's for lowering the individual donation limit from $2,300 ($4,600/couple, and then to the "bundling" stage of one person, somehow, someway, accumulating $100,000 from supposedly fifty people) to $500? $100? $50?

The NYT, of course, would "solve" the problem by ENTIRELY removing individual choice from political campaigns, via their affixation with full public funding (think of your tax returns) to return us to the "glory days" of the 1976-1992 era, or something like that.

But OESY0208, my friends and colleagues will say, you just cannot allow the titans of industry, finance, and business to donate what they want to whomever they want, or, well, that would mean America is a capitalist society checked by a republic form of government. The Supreme Court has already ruled that corporations are people (see The Santa Clara Case) and do not people have free speech?

Not under McCain-Feingold, even the parts that escaped the Supreme Court.