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 lmost
everyone agrees that the campaign-finance-reform bill will hurt
the parties, shifting resources from them to independent groups
like the NAACP and the NRA.
But almost
everyone shrugs off this fact — the parties are considered
somehow disrespectable, as somehow deserving of the hit they will
take from Shays-Meehan.
They aren't.
As NR
asks in the current issue, how would it be possible for both parties
to be simultaneously corrupted by "soft money," when they
hold diametrically opposed positions on most issues?
The very idea
of these huge sprawling national institutions being "bought"
with a $100,000 contribution is absurd.
If you are
looking for a corrupt-seeming practice, a more-likely candidate
would be committee chairmen raising money from corporations they
regulate.
An example,
of course, is John McCain, then-chairman of the Senate commerce
committee, taking $30,000 from employees of Global Crossing, the
recently bankrupt company that is not Enron.
Now, I don't
think that McCain was corrupted by Global Crossing. There are just
too many other considerations important to him for that to happen
— these include his ideas, his integrity, his reputation, and
his constituents.
But the point
is that if Global Crossing wanted a special favor, it would go to
someone like McCain for it, not the Republican party.
Parties don't
take positions on appropriations riders, on midnight amendments,
and on other legislative minutia that might be important to special
interests. Individual lawmakers do.
So, in this
sense, the whole thrust of Shays-Meehan is misdirected. The parties
are being punished for an appearance of a kind of corruption that
they really aren't even capable of.
Parties don't
have sex with interns.
Parties don't
abruptly shift their positions on fundamental issues.
Parties don't
take bribes.
They are too
big for all that, and too concerned with advancing two differing
ideologies in which they both sincerely believe.
This is why
the poor reputation of political parties is so undeserved. The NAACP
and NRA may be great (you will obviously like one more than the
other), but they have relatively narrow interests.
In our politics,
the parties are the two institutions that think most broadly about
what's good for the nation, rather than what's good for a specific
constituency.
They take a
multitude of impulses and ideas, reconcile them into a fairly coherent
worldview, and try to get people elected who agree with that worldview.
Just think
of all the Enron soft money that supposedly went to corrupting the
Democratic party. What was it spent on? Ads attacking tax cuts for
the rich, efforts to register new voters, sound trucks on Election
Day in urban neighborhoods, etc.
All of these
things are about advancing a political argument and getting people
to vote. And for that, the parties are going to bear the brunt of
the Shays-Meehan effort to "clean up" politics.
What a travesty.
If I had $100,000 to give each party before the new rules kick in,
I would.
As for John
McCain, he'll have to look for contributions elsewhere — like
all those companies he regulates.
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