John McCain was not a very popular guy with his Republican colleagues in the Congress when he pushed his campaign finance reform in the Presidential election campaign of 2000.  When the McCain Feingold bill was finally approved, all but two Democratic Senators supported it, but only a dozen Republicans.   McCain's bill has proven to be the ultimate Trojan horse. With higher hard money limits of $2,000 per race, and higher annual limits for total federal contributions per individual, the GOP has done much better raising money for its congressional candidates, and for President Bush, than have the Democrats with their candidates. The Democrats for years had pledged allegiance to campaign finance reform, so as to get the big special interest money out of politics (in their view, bad corporate money). Now, the national parties cannot receive the big soft money gifts, which had become the major funding source for the Democrats, and to a lesser extent for the GOP. Critics...(Read Full Post)