Campaign Finance: Looking for the Loopholes

That may explain why Bush isn't too bothered by a soft-money ban. For his 2004 re-election bid, the President is likely to have a huge hard-money advantage--in his first presidential bid, some 200 Bush "Pioneers" each raised $100,000 in $1,000 increments from friends--and the soft-money ban would make it hard for Democrats to catch up. Already the Dems are scrambling to narrow the huge Republican lead in hard money. The Democrats' new headquarters will have high-tech computers to help reach more of the $2,000-range donors.

The last time Congress passed sweeping campaign-finance reform was in 1974, after the Watergate scandal. But the big bucks have long since crept back in. "Any campaign-finance reform law works for a period of time," says Anthony Corrado, a Colby College professor of government. "But it has to be revisited from time to time, or the money will find ways to get back into the system." If Shays-Meehan becomes law, it should help clean up the money game, at least until its reforms are slowly strangled by loopholes. That's a noble fate for a bill that has been so often given up for dead.