I believe in campaign finance reform but I define it differently than Senator McCain does.

In my view, more dangerous than soft money is federal money.

Thomas Jefferson said to compel a person to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.

The present campaign system requires the American people to subsidize candidates and political parties with whom they might disagree. At the same time it reinforces the power of the major parties and their leadership by limiting what a person can contribute to a candidate per electoral cycle to $1000. Fundamentally, this means that someone seeking election to office, unless he is independently wealthy, has his own mailing list or has 500 friends who will give him $1000 apiece, is really dependent on the leaders of his political party. He has to curry favor with them. That's one of the reason why so many Republican Congressmen voted for permanent Most Favored Nation status for Red China, even though their constituents back home opposed it.

I would not put limits on the American people regarding what amount of money they can contribute to a candidate any more than I would limit the electronic or print media to a particular number of words that they can print or say about a candidate.

The best kind of campaign reform is reform that gets the government out of it. The War of Independence would not have been won if King George had been able to regulate the ways in which the Continental Army was allowed to participate in the battle for our own independence.

The purpose of an election is to possibly change the government. In light of this, the federal government should not be in a position to regulate or inhibit our ability to do that

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