First, a bit of good
news:
"Thanks to 527s, we will be outspent by the Democrats," said Ken Mehlman, according to a participant who took notes of the meeting. "MoveOn.org is a huge threat and has hurt the president. Every action makes a difference."
I am hard pressed to fault a system that may bring about financial parity between Bush and Kerry. However, the facts -- that Bush has raised a record amount of campaign cash and total Democratic spending may match it -- makes me wonder if the campaign finance reform bill has done anything.
One may say that at least the money raised by 527s (and Kerry) has come more from small individual contributions than the soft money of the super-rich. That's partially true, but we (Dems) do have our own rich financiers:
- Hollywood producer Steve Bing, head of Shangri La Entertainment, gave $5 million to the Joint Victory Campaign
- Peter Lewis, president of Progressive Corp., gave $2 million to the fund (JVC)
- The Media Fund received $1 million from the service employees union and $750,000 from the American Federation of Teachers
- Billionaire financier George Soros gave $1 million to the MoveOn.org Voter Fund
So I pose the question: What good has campaign finance reform done? Has it helped bring about Dem-Repub parity? Has it helped increase grassroots donations and political awareness? Or has it just forced special interests to figure out a new funnel to fit their money into?