Money and politics Bush-McCain debate on campaign funding hits core issue. McCain, in effect, labeled Bush's proposal too little, too late. Bush and McCain will argue the finer points of campaign finance reform on the campaign trail, but McCain has done the nation a service simply by putting the subject onto the national table. The millions that flow into political hands, unaccounted for and without restraints, stains the apparatus of governing with the tinge of impropriety and of favoritism. Soft money was at the core of the renting of the Lincoln bedroom to the high rollers by the Clinton presidential campaign.
Soft money is the gaping loophole in the Watergate era campaign election laws.
The present campaign laws were themselves once reforms, meant to counter the excesses of the Nixon Watergate era. Candidates there get free air time, parties receive millions in public funds and all big donations must be fully disclosed. Yet fomer chancellor Helmut Kohl, Germany's political giant, now is accused of taking millions in secret contributions. All rights reserved.