From Now On You Can Only Get Your News Here

Most political advertising is placed on television and radio, but as of now, only certain organizations like MoveOn.org will be able to place effective commercials between now and the November 7 election. This is one of the reasons I have such antipathy to Senator McCain and why I was so disappointed that President Bush signed McCain-Finegold into law.

Washington Examiner
Sep 1, 2006

WASHINGTON – “Something almost without precedent in America will happen Thursday. That’s the day when McCain-Feingold — aka the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 — will officially silence broadcast advertising that contains criticism of members of Congress seeking re-election in November. Before 2006, American election campaigns traditionally began in earnest after Labor Day. Unless McCain-Feingold is repealed, Labor Day will henceforth mark the point in the campaign when congressional incumbents can sit back and cruise, free of those pesky negative TV and radio spots. It is the most effective incumbent protection act possible, short of abolishing the elections themselves.

How can this possibly be, you ask? McCain-Feingold — named after the law’s main advocates, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Russ Feingold, D-Wis. — bans all broadcast political advocacy advertising that mentions candidates by name, beginning 60 days before the election. President Bush signed and the U.S. Supreme Court shockingly upheld McCain-Feingold three years ago. Earlier this week, the Federal Election Commission, decided against allowing an exemption to the ban that would have allowed some highly restricted advocacy ads by groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO.

Interestingly, three Democratic members of the FEC voted against the proposed exemption, while three Republicans voted for it….” Washington Examiner

McCain-Finegold also restricts the amount of money that can be donated to a candidate of one’s choice. What this has done is to make our politicians dependent on lobbyists and 527 political action groups, and it just changed the form that corruption takes. Since the amount of money raised in the elections since McCain-Finegold has risen substantially, not only has this law deprived Americans of their first amendment rights, it has completely failed its major goal. This law was a big mistake and should be repealed as soon as possible.