Generally people support campaign contributions, but most think that there should be some limits imposed by the government. That's nearly twice as many as favor current law, which allows unlimited donations to the parties. Critics say soft money allows contributors to evade limits on the amount they can give directly to political candidates.
Supporters counter that making political donations is an exercise of free speech.
The Senate scheduled test votes on the issue today. While support for limiting soft money is broad, the issue hasn't fired many people up. It ranked even lower as a voting issue in the 2000 presidential election, last of 15 issues tested. Moreover, there was no political edge in the issue, with the public dividing evenly on whether they trusted the Democrats or the Republicans more to handle it. The results have a three-point error margin.