Soft money spending grew after two liberalizations of the Federal Election Campaign Act in 1978 and 1979. In 1995 and 1996, President Clinton and Vice President Gore raised significant sums of soft money leading to the selling of the Lincoln bedroom scandals and numerous investigations that lasted throughout the 1990s. The data show, however, that public trust in government rose for about six years after the soft money liberalizations of 1978-79. Similarly, public trust in government increased throughout and after the period of the Clinton soft money controversies. Whatever else might be true, soft money does not cause more public mistrust of government.
Most polls do show that the public desires changes to a broken system.
Some polls even show significant support for limiting campaign expenditures, a clear violation of the First Amendment to the Constitution. However, this support is quite thin. In an examination of nearly a dozen polls taken during the 2000 campaign by outfits such as The Wall Street Journal, FoxNews and Harris, none found more than 2 percent of the population mentioning campaign finance reform as a top one or two issue. McCain is fond of using the American people s demands as a justification for his attempts to stifle political communication. This is hardly supported by the data.