Today POLITICO Arena asks:
Looking at the repeated failures of campaign finance reforms, is it time to end the restrictions?
My response:
Funny, we didn’t hear the primal scream about campaign finance from liberal Democrats during the 2008 campaigns, when money was pouring into their coffers from everywhere. Do we need any better evidence of the hypocrisy surrounding their screams this year? If so, turn to the lead editorial in this morning’s Wall Street Journal. It’ll tell you all you need to know about the campaign finance “reform” ruse that has been going on for years.
As I’ve written often at the Arena, the true aim of this game is incumbent protection, and it has been from the beginning. But thanks to the First Amendment, incumbents can’t shut down all private campaign financing, or regulate it in many of the ways that have been tried over the years. So after each new “reform,” private money — which is speech — finds new ways to try to influence election outcomes. The reformers real beef, then, is with the First Amendment. They won’t say it. But there it is. It’s time to end this nonsense.
