Candidates Tackle Campaign Reform

NEWS ANALYSIS

BEDFORD, N.H.--Republican presidential candidate Senator John S. McCain (R-Ariz.) couldn't have known that the same day he had selected to take a hard line stand against soft money would turn out to be a record-shattering day for campaign fundraising.

Before a crowd of 300 Wednesday at the town hall here, McCain put forward his plan to reform the current campaign finance system, which he called "nothing less than an elaborate influence peddling scheme."

Later that day, in San Francisco, Texas Gov. George W. Bush announced that he had collected $36.2 million in campaign contributions--roughly six times as much as McCain, twice as much as Democratic frontrunner Vice President Al Gore '69 and more than any other presidential candidate in history has ever raised at this point in the election cycle.

Reforming the way in which candidates for public office raise money has become the central issue of McCain's campaign. And while McCain did not mention Bush by name in his speech, it is exactly Bush's kind of fundraising that supporters of campaign finance reform hope to end.

"I want to take our politics and our government back from the special interests," McCain told supporters Wednesday. He has proposed to outlaw soft money contributions to political parties, donations that now go unregulated.

"As long as special interests dominate campaigns, they will dominate legislation as well," McCain said, pointing to the difficulty legislators have encountered when trying to reform programs like Social Security and Medicare where donors' interests are at stake. "Until we abolish soft money, Americans will never have a government that works as hard for them as it does for the special interests."

McCain is not the only presidential hopeful making campaign finance reform an issue in the primaries, though he is the only Republican who has made the issue so central to his campaign.

Both Democratic presidential candidates, Gore and former New Jersey senator Bill Bradley, support campaign finance reform. But Bradley, the underdog in the Democratic race, has been the more vocal proponent of reform.

"We need a president to put it on the top of his list," Bradley said in an April speech to Dartmouth students, calling campaign finance reform an issue of "paramount importance."

Bradley and McCain support a similar set of reforms. The former New Jersey senator has said he would also support public financing of campaigns.

Bradley is also rejecting contributions from political action committees (PACs) during his campaign, saying taking contributions he would try to ban would diminish his ability to lead on campus finance reform.

"You can't have compromised on your way to the White House."

For both candidates, the heart of the matter lies with what is known as soft money.

The federal government sets dollar limits on how much individuals and political committees can contribute to specific candidates, but many of these limits do not apply to the national parties.

According to the guidelines set by the Federal Election Commission (FEC), each party "operates under [their] own set of contribution limits." In other words, contributions can be made in any amount to national political parties from individuals, groups or PACs.

As a result, wealthy donors and corporations have given hundreds of thousands of dollars in soft money to political parties--an attempt to gain political influence in the eyes of campaign finance reform proponents.

While the FEC sets limits on how much a political party or PAC can spend on individual candidates, unlimited amounts of soft money can be spent by political parties, PACs or issue advocacy groups as long as that money is not spent in support of or against particular candidates.

"We cannot advocate the election or defeat of a specific candidate," said Tom Lu, a Republican National Committee spokesperson. "We can point out differences in positions."

This minor technicality provides a huge loophole for candidates and contributors as unlimited amounts of money can be raised and spent on television campaigns, for example.

"Soft money is one of the biggest loopholes that special interests have to get money to campaigns," said Eric Schmeltzer, communications associate at Public Campaign, a not-for-profit organization advocating campaign finance reform. "It is one of the biggest sources of buying influence and access to elected officials."

But if McCain and Bradley want to build support for their presidential bids using campaign finance reform as a central issue, they must be able to explain the rather technical legal issue in ways voters can understand.

In his speech on Wednesday, McCain tried to describe the problem in simple terms, by taking jibes at Gore and President Clinton.

"Most Americans care very much that the Lincoln bedroom has become a Motel 6 where the President of the United States serves as a bellhop," he said. "Most Americans care very much when monks and nuns abandon their vows of poverty and pay tens of thousands of dollars to have spiritual communion with the Vice President."

He cited the tax system as an example of the direct influence special interests can gain through contributions.

"For the sake of soft money we have put tax loopholes for special interests ahead of tax relief for working families, and we have made the tax code a bewildering 44,000 page catalogue of favors for a privileged few and a chamber of horrors for the rest of America," he said.

Whether or not campaign finance will catch on as an important issue in either party's primary remains to be seen.

Peter Spaulding, McCain's New Hampshire campaign chair, says McCain will try to make campaign finance reform a key issue in the Republican race.

"Sen. McCain has the unique ability to take the issue of campaign finance reform and show how it does matter," he said.

If McCain and Bradley can effectively explain how they think campaign finance reform will change politics, it may win him support among voters disenchanted with the influence of special interests inside the beltway.

A survey conducted in eight states by Public Campaign last September showed that a plurality of voters believed that "major" change was needed in the campaign finance system.

In New Hampshire, 53 percent of voters agreed with the need for major change and 26 percent believed minor change was necessary.

McCain's background may also help him to capitalize on the issue of campaign finance reform.

In the Senate, McCain was one of few Republicans to support reform legislation. Last February, the McCain-Feingold campaign reform bill failed after supporters fell nine votes short of the 60 votes need to end a Republican-led filibuster.

Last September, after the House passed a similar piece of campaign finance reform legislation, the Shays-Meehan bill, McCain, along with Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) tried again to pass their legislation. For a second time, the bill failed, by a vote of 52-48, 8 votes short of breaking the filibuster led by Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.).

"Republicans were very quick to jump on the [Clinton] administration [for alleged fundraising violations]," Spaulding said. "But when it came time to put up or shut up, the Washington Republican establishment was hesitant to take action."

In spite of opposition to campaign finance from many leading Republicans politicians, the Public Campaign poll showed that 75 percent of the voters in New Hampshire supported the McCain-Feingold legislation and opposition to the bill among voters in states surveyed did not rise above 20 percent.

McCain will still face an uphill battle making campaign finance reform a winning issue in the primaries.

But the Senator, who was held as a prisoner of war for five-and-a-half years during the Vietnam War, seems ready for the challenge.

"I've been told there is no room for this issue in Republican primaries. Well, I intend to make room for it," he said.

But some campaign finance reform supporters say that ultimately, it will take more extensive legislation than the likes of the McCain-Feingold bill to make a substantial difference in the way elections are run.

"It's a major mistake to believe that if you close the soft money loophole you solve the problems of campaign finance reform," Schmeltzer said. "A far reaching comprehensive reform that attacks all of the problems with our current system is needed."