John Edwards Took It, Before He Gave It Back

John Edwards is in trouble again politically. It appears his campaign took money from “special interest groups.” The campaign now refunded the money to the people who donated. He took it, before he gave it back? Sounds like a familiar refrain.

The point in all of this is not Edwards’ hypocrisy. That’s as established as anything could be. The issue is our hypocrisy as a nation. Why shouldn’t a person be able to expend every dime they own to get a person elected? That choice is as American as apple pie.

But thanks to McCain-Feingold we don’t have that choice. Instead, we have a completely dysfunctional campaign finance system that makes it nearly impossible to tell who is supporting who and creates a screen to shield the identities of people who want to launch political attacks and forward their agendas with “soft” money contributions to third party attack dogs.

Not only does that harm the democratic process through dishonesty, it harms the ability of people to fully engage in the process. Is politics all about money? It is now. It wasn’t before. McCain-Feingold didn’t fix the problem, it complicated it. We should set out to repeal this bad law as soon as this election cycle ends.