Free Republic

Just a post for a pause. We may just be seeing the golden age Scott Adams has described recently. Reject the melanin content, and observe the intellectual content. We are all on the verge of winning. God bless the USA. ~W

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfhKRDM5cwY

WASHINGTON, Nov. 7 - The McCain-Feingold law, which did more to change how American political campaigns are financed than any legislation since the 1970's, got its first real-world test in this year's election. And now its critics are more emphatic than ever in arguing that the law has fallen short of its goals, and even some supporters are calling for revisions. The 2002 law demolished the system that for more than a decade had allowed political parties to feed on unlimited soft-money contributions from companies, labor unions and donors. But what rose in its place remains the subject of fierce...

[O]ne big loser was... McCain-Feingold campaign finance "reform".... Preliminary reports say a record $3.9 billion was spent on this year's Presidential and Congressional campaigns, 30% more than four years ago. Instead of severing the supposedly corrupting links between big money and politics, the reform's main effect has been merely to channel the cash through different political hands, and with less accountability. ...McCain-Feingold has succeeded in the narrow goal of staunching the flow of contributions from corporations, Big Labor and wealthy individuals to the two major political parties. Labor unions have turned more of their attention to voter registration and turnout....

In the meantime, charges of voter fraud continue. Democrats cried foul over news reports of the alleged destruction of voter registration forms by a Republican-funded registration group and National Democratic Party Chairman Terry McAuliffe charged the Republican National Committee of engaging in voter fraud in at least two states. But Republicans are also pointing fingers. America Coming Together and Acorn, nonprofit groups that have conducted voter registration drives in poor neighborhoods, have both been accused of turning in fraudulent voter registrations. Kerry strategist Tad Devine has called the work of third-party groups to bring in new voter registrations “unprecedented.” Notwithstanding,...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 7 - Just last week, Stanley Greenberg was the polling mastermind guiding the way three liberal groups spent tens of millions of dollars attacking President Bush and registering voters. But he quit that position to be an unpaid adviser to the Kerry campaign as it presses to sharpen its message in the final 56 days before the election. Mr. Greenberg is just the latest in a procession of top strategists who have moved between the campaigns and advocacy groups called 527's - the very organizations that are not supposed to coordinate their activities under campaign finance rules. The...

For those who think that there is too much money in politics (and think most of it is Republican) there is just one word -- Soros. That is George Soros, the left-wing radical billionaire who has pledged to personally spend tens of millions of dollars to try to unseat George Bush in 2004. Defeating the Bush administration -- which he recklessly likened to Nazis and communists -- has become an obsessive focus of Soros life. His recent $10 million contribution to the new Democrat activist group America Coming Together was the largest single donation from an individual in history. Soros...