Individuals can legally contribute a maximum of a thousand dollars per year to a candidate. Even that limit can add up to big bucks when a group of wealthy individuals organize a fund raising effort. Our campaign finance corruption has run rampant. Make no mistake about it. Soft money is the oxymoron of the decade.
Big money is never soft.
Also make no mistake about how deeply our two parties are steeped in this obscene orgy of soft money. The Republicans raise more of it than Democrats because they more openly favor rich people's pursuit of wealth. Those ads had a lot to do with turning the incumbent president from underdog to top dog in 1996. It is true that the Democrats have recently paid lip service to campaign finance reform, but they haven't changed their fund raising practices. In the last couple of years, the House of Representatives has twice passed legislation to ban these campaign uses of soft money.