The McCain-Feingold effect on McCain campaign

Kimberly Strassel:

John McCain's campaign fell into disarray this week, kicked off by the news it had raised a scant $24 million so far. Mark these money woes down to any number of problems, but don't entirely discount the McCain-Feingold effect.

Let's stipulate that most of the good senator's troubles stem from high-profile policy disagreements he's had with his own base. He's tweaked noses on global warming and slapped faces on immigration. His admirable decision to stand strong on Iraq has been undermined by his tendency to stand weak on national security issues such as interrogations and enemy combatants. And economic conservatives just don't trust a guy who won't admit that cutting taxes is good.

Yet while each of these issues has undoubtedly taken its financial toll, Mr. McCain has labored under yet one more burden: McCain-Feingold. He was the prime author of that 2002 law, which took direct aim at his own party and its activists, making it harder for them to collect money, register voters and voice opinions about candidates. It left the very people so vital to a campaign in its early stages--those who write checks, knock on doors, turn out for primaries--furious with him. Talks with party officials and activists today suggest that hostility remains, and has played into his money difficulties.

"For most conservatives, campaign finance is conceptually pretty easy; they saw it as targeting them," says Bradley Smith, former chairman of the Federal Election Commission, now a professor of law at Capital University and chairman of the Center for Competitive Politics. "I've been surprised at how angry people were, and remain, over that law."

Don't underestimate just how many Americans he means. Huge and influential interest groups such as the National Rifle Association and the National Right to Life Committee viewed McCain-Feingold as a direct threat to their missions. Both were among the first to sue over parts of the law, including provisions barring ads 30 to 60 days before primaries and elections.

Both also went out of their way to inform their memberships about McCain-Feingold's threats to free speech and activists' ability to target politicians who support gun laws or abortion. For years now, the NRA has bombarded its four million members with information and attacks on the law via its magazines, emails, direct mailing, telephone calls and its satellite radio program. "Our members are more politically savvy, more in tune, and they understand the impact of McCain-Feingold more than your average interest-group member," says Andrew Arulanandam, director of public affairs at the NRA. Which is another way of saying they aren't always keen to open their wallets for Mr. McCain.

National Right to Life took campaign-finance restrictions so seriously that it included McCain-Feingold as two of three key votes it used to score Senate members in 2002 (the third was a ban on abortions in military medical facilities). It has reminded its many subscribers to its monthly newsletter of the law's problems. David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union (ACU), the nation's oldest conservative lobby group, goes so far as to say that he always thought "there was a ceiling on [McCain's] support," largely because of McCain-Feingold.

That ceiling, if it does exist, isn't just on financial donors, but on those in the party apparatus who might otherwise be out drumming up support....

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I think she has correctly analyzed his finance problems which have become compounded by his political problems created by his support for things Republicans oppose. He is left with the only issue that Republicans do support which is winning the war. Without that he would probably drop down into the * category in the polls. Ironically his former base, the media, have turned against because of that very issue. I am doubtful they ever really supported him that much. He was more a vessel for channeling their opposition to George Bush whom they saw as more conservative. They were also big fans of McCain-Feingold which has put him in this losing position. I guess there is some irony in that.

John McIntyre looks at other aspects of McCain's campaign problems. He thinks Rudy's strong showing helped to derail the express.