>He's all but renounced McCain-Feingold.<
Right! He was for it before he was against it! I don't trust people who want to be all things to all people, and will say anything to achieve that status. I have more respect for someone who will stick with his convictions, even if I think they are wrong.
Trying to correct the link from the last post:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1798412/posts
I think his reasoning for both supporting it and later being against it was perfectly reasonable.
Apparently, you're one of those 'my way or the highway' types that are NEVER satisfied with a candidate.
Like Rudy?
I did some digging into the Senate votes related to McCain-Feingold (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/vote_menu_107_1.htm).
Thompson did vote for it, which is troubling, despite his recent change of heart. That said, if you look at the votes, you'll see that he was not in lockstep with McCain on this. His vote differed from McCain's on a number of different issues listed below.
Most notably, Thompson introduced an amendment to raise hard money limits and index those limits to inflation. He specifically made the point that individual contributions = free speech. McCain voted to kill Thompson's amendment before it reached the floor. However, the amendment did get to the floor, and it passed.
This doesn't in my mind mitigate Thompson's vote in favor of CFR, but it does show that he had concerns about it even then and in many ways did not agree with McCain's approach. I do think this lends credence to his recent repudiation of the bill.
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=107&session=1&vote=00037
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=107&session=1&vote=00038
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=107&session=1&vote=00046
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=107&session=1&vote=00047
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=107&session=1&vote=00049
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=107&session=1&vote=00053 (this was Thompson's amendment to increase hard money contributions -- McCain voted to kill it)
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?r107:1:./temp/~r107Kv5YyZ:e0 (here is the discussion where Thompson calls individual contributions free speech)
:http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=107&session=1&vote=00054
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=107&session=1&vote=00055 (this is the final vote on Thompson's successful amendment to increase hard money limits. McCain ultimately ended up supporting it, although he tried to kill it before it reached a floor vote)
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=107&session=1&vote=00056