A campaign contributor, responding to a fund-raising call from California State Senator Richard Katz. Katz called the donor at nine o'clock in the morning on the day after a federal judge struck down state contribution limits that had been passed by California voters in a 1996 ballot initiative. If you have money, you get a meeting and you get what you want. If you don't have any money, you might as well hit the pavement and start walking. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that a much better way to get out the vote is to get the money out of politics.
Soft money is nothing but a slush fund.
It's got no place in democratic elections. Letting Archer Daniels Midland act as campaign supermarket to the Congress comes with a very steep, if indirect, price. It's bankrupting us in more ways than one. And the problem, frankly, is not the Republican Party or the Democratic Party. It is hard to imagine a clearer conflict of interest.