Those who thought campaign finance spending “reforms” would put a lid on runaway political fundraising must be sorely disappointed. Filings for the first quarter of the year indicate that efforts to curb big money in politics have resulted in more money in politics.
The 2004 campaign is proving once again that campaign finance curbs, aside from doing violence to the 1st Amendment, are generally exercises in futility.
President Bush and Sen. John Kerry have blown the roof off of previous records for campaign fund-raising and spending.
Bush has raised $186 million since launching his campaign last year. He spent almost $50 million in March, more than Al Gore spent in the entire primary season of 2000. Kerry broke records, too. He raised $84 million in the last 14 months, including almost $55 million in the first three months of this year. Kerry’s campaign hopes to raise another $80 million this month.
These bonanzas were made possible partly because of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law and partly despite the new law. McCain-Feingold doubled the maximum allowable individual contribution to $2,000 as a trade-off for stricter fundraising and spending limits that it put on political parties. Bush and Kerry also avoided limits on their spending by declining federal matching funds.
McCain-Feingold’s backers did not anticipate the role that outside campaign organizations known as 527 committees would play in this election. Democratic activists have formed independent groups, such as the Media Fund and America Coming Together, that are doing much of the advertising and voter mobilization work that the Democratic Party performed before McCain-Feingold crimped party fundraising.
A challenger would be expected to be at a fundraising disadvantage to an incumbent. But the combined advertising buys of the Media Fund, the liberal MoveOn.org and the Kerry campaign itself match and sometimes surpass the ad buys of the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign in crucial battleground states.
Money finds its own route in politics. There’s nothing inherently evil in that; it takes money to get out a political message. But when the 2004 campaign is over, the clamor will begin once again to reform the reforms that tried and failed to squeeze the money out of politics.
