Redstate

...should I order something for lunch, after all?

The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC.

Hmmm... I don't seem to remember an anti-bundling provision in McCain-Feingold so just pointing out the fact that bundling is going on doesn't really speak to the effectiveness of the law. You make a common mistake of deregulation advocates--overstating the law's goals and constitutional reach and understating its successes.

McCain-Feingold was targeted at two of the worst abuses in the pre-2002 campaign finance system--not ALL abuses. If you don't believe me, just look at the text of the statute. It was meant to stop the flow of unlimited funds through the national party committees and the use of corporate treasury money to run candidate-specific issue ads (sometimes called "sham" issue ads) immediately before an election. These abuses have both stopped after McCain-Feingold.

I don't completely agree with Ornstein and Corrado that McCain-Feingold has been entirely responsible for the new flow of small donors into politics--some of this would have happened anyways with the advent of internet technology. HOWEVER, I think it should be pointed out that the technology existed in 2002 to successfully raise money over the internet BUT the parties weren't dedicated to tapping this source because they could still go after the "low hanging" fruit of unlimited contributions from corporations and wealthy individuals. The soft money ban made the parties retool themselves and dedicate more resources to developing a small donor base.

Now, Bob Bauer is perhaps correct that bundling has become more prevalent after McCain-Feingold. BUT I don't think he is necessarily correct that a bundler is equivalent to a soft money donor. The bundler gets influence, if at all, due to his/her ability to line up a LARGE number of individual contributors rather than via corporate money or only his/her own funds. This is positive because in some respect, moving from direct soft money contributions to bundling has widened the pool of donors. Money looks more like votes which, after all, is the purpose of campaign finance regulation (not, as many say, to "get money out of politics"). That being said, bundling may be a problem and it may need to be regulated BUT the increased prevalence of it does NOT point to deregulation--it points to further regulation.

What I don't get about deregulation advocates (I'm speaking stereotypically) is their assertion that a disclosure-only regime would work better than the current limit-disclosure regime. Is that really the case? A disclosure-only regime, to the extent that it "works" would be subject to the same evasive practices that occur with contribution limits. (Witness the practice of individuals giving to 501(c)(4)s rather than 527s.) Can someone answer that for me?

You said that you didn't have to debunk the myth that McCain-Feingold didn't work because Bob Bauer did it for you. But I read Bauer's article and it focused on only one tiny aspect of the campaign finance system. Are you still planning on writing a legit article on how McCain-Feingold was so bad?