Debating For Dollars

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After a week of debate, the Senate had made two changes that really mattered; both would make life more comfortable for the few, the proud, the Senators. One would ensure that broadcasters give candidates the lowest rates possible for their campaign ads. Although most observers said the change was minor, Don Nickles of Oklahoma called it "a major gift to politicians." (It also stirred up the powerful broadcasting lobby, which could be hazardous to the bill's long-term health.) The second amendment would allow Senators to collect larger donations if they found themselves running against a rich opponent willing to spend his or her own money. That is the ultimate nightmare for many lawmakers, who need think only of former Senators Slade Gorton and Rod Grams, who lost last year to millionaire challengers (and now freshman Senators) Maria Cantwell and Mark Dayton. Susan Collins of Maine, a state where at least two rich Democrats are rumored to be considering a challenge next year, made sure politicians from small states got the biggest leg up. "There's raw self-interest, contrasted with the grand rhetoric," groused Jim Bopp, an adviser to the bill's chief opponent, Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell. "Almost everything they've done is to pad their own nest as candidates and protect themselves as incumbent politicians."

But by week's end, there were indications that McCain-Feingold could actually pass in a recognizable form. Even the staunchest opponents seemed to have softened their opposition to the bill's central provision, a ban on the unregulated "soft money" that has flooded the political system over the past decade, nearly half a billion dollars in the 2000 election cycle alone. What may have been a breakthrough came after McCain arranged a meeting with one of his foes--Nickles, the Senate's No. 2 Republican. "Tell the Senator his friends are here," McCain told Nickles' secretary when he arrived. Their discussion moved through some disagreements but found common ground. Nickles surprised McCain by bringing up soft money--and saying Senators were sick of raising it. Bush was willing to ban all but individual soft-money contributions, Nickles said, so why not go the rest of the way? There was a catch: he could support a soft-money ban only if McCain increased the amount of hard money donors could give, limits that have not been raised since the 1970s.

That's a tricky bargain. A big increase risks losing the support of some of the bill's strongest supporters, including Daschle, whose defection would give plenty of other Democrats the cover they need to bolt. (It was so much easier for Democrats to oppose soft money before they became as good as Republicans at raising it.) Big increases in the hard-money limits, where Republicans still have an advantage, would make any claims of reform a sham. Says Senator Paul Wellstone: "It puts even more big money into politics."