McCain Feingold

The Supremes are soon to take a case regarding McCain-Feingold, and are presented with an opportunity to toss it completely. This would make elections more like they used to be (obfuscationary and corrupt) than they are now (obfuscationary and corrupt). Although having a donations line open that allows contributions from anyone, anywhere in the world probably lowers the bar about as far as it will go without doing photo ops with terrorists in return for a fat check.

The idea that restricting money to politicians to keep them more pure is right up there with keeping guns out of big cities to keep the violence down. We all know how well that's working out in D.C. and Chicago.

Better idea would be to let pols take money from anyone they want, as long as they publish the source on the internet, say within 24 hours. To illustrate the futility of that, just imagine the sudden proliferation of PACs with names like "The Sweetness And Light Group For Mom And Apple Pie", wholly funded by, say, Mexican drug cartels.

Of course if the pols had less money to spread around, and fewer opportunities to spread it, the price of a vote would drop. As someone said:"When politicians control buying and selling, the first things bought and sold are the politicians."