As noted the Supreme Court struck down limitations on campaign advertising in a challenge to the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform bill. From The Hill McCain has now responded:
It is regrettable that a split Supreme Court has carved out a narrow exception by which some corporate and labor expenditures can be used to target a federal candidate in the days and weeks before an election,†McCain said. “It is important to recognize, however, that the Court’s decision does not affect the principal provision of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, which bans federal officeholders from soliciting soft money contributions for their parties to spend on their campaigns
The court weakened a provision in the law that strictly limited ads paid for with corporate and union money within 30 days of a primary and 60 days of a general election. It ruled that the law violated the First Amendment rights of Wisconsin Right to Life, which was prevented from running ads urging voters to contact Democratic Sens. Herb Kohl (Wis.) and Russ Feingold (Wis.) about a filibuster of judicial nominees.
“Probably there should be a rule against it,” said New Yorker writer Mark Singer, who wrote the magazine’s profile of Howard Dean during the 2004 campaign, then gave $250 to America Coming Together and its get-out-the-vote campaign to defeat President Bush. “But there’s a rule against murder. If someone had murdered Hitler  a journalist interviewing him had murdered him  the world would be a better place. I only feel good, as a citizen, about getting rid of George Bush, who has been the most destructive president in my lifetime. I certainly don’t regret it.”
An interesting article on MSNBC which stated “MSNBC.com identified 144 journalists who made political contributions from 2004 through the start of the 2008 campaign, according to the public records of the Federal Election Commission. Most of the newsroom checkbooks leaned to the left: 125 journalists gave to Democrats and liberal causes. Only 17 gave to Republicans. Two gave to both parties.”
The article is chock full of good quotes that will make your head roll:
“I don’t make campaign contributions,” said Jean A. Briggs, who gave a total of $2,000 to the Republican Party and Republican candidates, most recently this March. “I’m the assistant managing editor of Forbes magazine.”
When asked about the Republican National Committee donations, she replied, “You call that a campaign contribution? It’s not putting money into anyone’s campaign.”
(For the record: The RNC gave $25 million to the Bush-Cheney campaign in 2004.)
