Campaign finance reform is what it pretends to combat corruption.

Let me say that again, slightly refraised.

Campaign finance reform corrupts the political system it presumes to save from corruption.

Now that I've taken the trouble to repeat myself, you may be shaking your head,

wondering how I could be so wrong.

Don't we want to get money out of politics?

Isn't campaign finance reform an inherent good?

The late Senator Eugene McCarthy, the iconic liberal politician of the Vietnam War era, didn't think so.

McCarthy, a Democrat who represented Minnesota in the Senate from 1959 to 1971,

did something unthinkable in 1968.

Because of his opposition to the Vietnam War, he challenged a powerful incumbent president for his party's presidential nomination.

His challenge to President Lyndon Johnson was possible and potent only because five wealthy liberals,

who shared McCarthy's opposition to the Vietnam War, gave him substantial sums of money.

Stuart Mott's $210,000 would be $1.4 million in today's dollars.

The five donors' seed money enabled McCarthy to raise $11 million or $75 million today.

But because of campaign finance reform, the most wealthy quintet could give to help an insurgent against an incumbent today,

would be $13,000, five times the individual limit of $2,600.

McCarthy didn't win the nomination, but he did compel Johnson not to run for a second term,

in doing so McCarthy changed history.

But the Democratic Party establishment wasn't happy about it.

To stop it from happening again, they pushed for government regulation of political speech.

Thus, in reaction to Eugene McCarthy's insurgency, campaign finance reform was born.

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