Some of America's smartest columnists think the Senate Democrats will do something very dumb this week: pass campaign finance reform. The argument goes like this. The centerpiece of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill is a ban on "soft money"--the unregulated sums that in theory pay for "party building" but in reality pay for virtually everything. The Democrats, the argument goes, now take in as much soft money as the Republicans. But they still raise much less in "hard money"--the regulated contributions that come in bite-sized $1,000 chunks. So passing McCain-Feingold would outlaw the type of fundraising Democrats do well, and allow the type they don't. Noting that most Democrats back the legislation and most Republicans oppose it, Jacob Weisberg wrote last month in Slate that "from the point of view of rational self-interest, the two parties would now seem to have it precisely backwards."

Morally, Weisberg's argument may be beside the point. If you believe in the inherent goodness of campaign finance reform more than you believe in the inherent goodness of the Democratic Party, it's perfectly rational to pass the former at the latter's expense. But many liberals really believe that the best way to edify American politics is to aggrandize the Democratic Party (especially those liberals with seats in the U.S. Senate). And so it's important to take on Weisberg's argument on its own terms. Luckily, I think you can.

First of all, McCain-Feingold doesn't only ban soft money--where Democrats and Republicans are even-- it also restricts expenditures by independent groups, where GOP-allies greatly outspend Democratic ones. Sure, the Supreme Court may deem that provision unconstitutional. But doing so may also eliminate the bill entirely--knocking out the soft money ban Weisberg thinks will hurt the Dems.

More importantly, there's reason to suspect the current soft money parity won't last. After all, the Democrats haven't historically matched GOP soft money. In 1999 and 2000, according to the Federal Election Commission, the Democrats raised 99 percent as much soft money as the GOP. Between 1993 and 2000, they raised 89 percent as much. Between 1977 and 1992, they raised 34 percent as much. Why have the Democrats caught up? True, the party may have grown somewhat more adept at sucking up to rich liberal donors and selling out to rich corporate ones, but there's a more obvious two word answer: Bill Clinton. Clinton turned the White House into a soft-money raising machine--renting himself out evening after evening at $50,000 a plate dinners and, when that wasn't enough, renting out the Lincoln Bedroom as well. Through sheer determination (or sheer avarice, depending on your point of view), Clinton personally counterbalanced the GOP's structural advantage as the party of corporate America. But now he's in Chappaqua, and Pardongate has severely undercut his ability to keep the Democrats financially competitive. In short, the shrewdest thing the Democrats could do now would be to ban soft money before the discrepancy reemerges--and while some Republicans (aided by pundits like Weisberg) think banning it is in the GOP's self-interest.

But the real reason Democrats shouldn't sink McCain-Feingold has nothing to do with whether they can keep pace with the GOP in soft money. After all, the Democrats matched the GOP in soft money this year, and they still lost the White House. The reason (OK, the reason besides the Supreme Court): Ralph Nader. A viable Green Party is at least as big a problem for the Democrats as being outfundraised by the Republicans. And what was the single biggest reason for Nader's surprising support in 2000? The belief that the Democrats were as corrupted by corporate money as the Republicans. If the Democrats want to double the number of voters who believe that, all they have to do is kill McCain-Feingold. And if that number doubles, the Democrats won't just lose Florida in 2004, they'll lose Wisconsin, Michigan, and Oregon as well. In other words, they'll get blown out.

Passing McCain-Feingold, by contrast, could help the Democrats enormously. In fact, if I were Tom Daschle, I'd do everything in my power not only to pass it, but to force a Bush veto. How come? Because the best way to counterpunch the ascendant Bushies today is the way the Dems counterpunched the ascendant Gingrichites in 1995. In the 1994 elections, the Republicans effectively hitched their conservative ideology to an agenda of populist reform. Frank Luntz, Ross Perot's pollster, devised the "Contract with America," which included such populist items as term limits and a balanced budget amendment. But once in office, the Gingrichites abandoned their populist veneer, and invited their K Street donors to literally write legislation gutting a host of environmental and labor laws. The Democrats loudly cried foul, and the congressional GOP lost its populist mantle. As TNR's John Judis notes in The Paradox of American Democracy, a Times-Mirror survey at the end of 1995 showed that 72 percent of Americans believed lobbyists wielded as much influence over Congress as they had before the Gingrichites took over. The GOP never regained its moral authority, and the Democrats retained the presidency, and won seats in the House, in 1996.

In the last couple of weeks, George W. Bush has begun to look vulnerable in exactly the way the Congressional GOP did in 1995. Last year, he used the Clinton scandals to reestablish the GOP's moral image--running as an anti-big government, anti-sleaze populist. But now, as Republicans are wont to do, he is tarnishing that image by overturning popular environmental and labor regulations at the behest of his corporate contributors. If the Democrats capitalize on these moves to tar Bush as arrogant and out of touch--as they did Gingrich--they can put themselves in a strong position for 2002 and 2004. And the best way to make that tar stick is to force Bush to veto campaign finance reform. A campaign-finance-reform veto, combined with Bush's K Street sellouts, could permanently shatter his outsider, "change the tone in Washington" political persona. If, on the other hand, the Dems kill campaign finance reform, they obscure Bush's corruption and highlight their own. That's not simply immoral, it's just plain dumb.
 
 

PETER BEINART is the editor of TNR.

[A version of this article appeared in the April 9 & 16, 2001 issue of The New Republic.]