It's the campaign bankbook that's the sine qua non. The good guys deserve to win one, if for no other reason than symbolism. Furthermore, the soft money hemorrhage is draining the lifeblood out of what we call democracy. The ads callously mischaracterized one of McCain's votes. The clear purpose was to help George W. Bush's primary campaign.
Soft money ought to go.
But that's only a start. Much more needs doing before we can say that we've reformed campaign financing. To pretend that this is all we need would be like pouring a bottle of aspirin into a fetid swamp and pronouncing it purified. To argue, as some senators have, that Congress must compensate for outlawing soft money by tripling the individual ceiling on hard money gifts misses the point. The problem is the addiction of the American political system to huge doses of money from those who use that bait, and office-seekers' dependency on the money drug, to influence legislation.