Also, they can read. Gephardt's not alone in his thinking. The threat to our freedoms is real, the prospect for real reform illusory. President Bush, who opposed McCain-Feingold during the campaign, now says he'll probably sign it. Now they are feeling the short hairs rise at the napes of their necks.
Every reform has unintended consequences.
There is no perfect reform. That advantage would likely grow if the parties and their allied groups were forced to concentrate more of their resources on raising money from millions of small donors. Ah, you say, we're just whistling past the graveyard. Given that passage of McCain-Feingold seems inevitable, we're looking desperately for a silver lining, and we've deluded ourselves into believing that it will backfire on liberals. If that's what you think, consider what we wrote 16 years ago about the last major change in the campaign finance system.