You may not realize what a scourge campaign finance reform is. I’ve taken a crash course in the last week, and I can only come to one conclusion: there are loopholes in McCain-Feingold big enough to drive the QE II through. It doesn’t do what it was intended to do. In fact, it ultimately appears to serve only to keep (a) incumbents in office and (b) the “little guy” out of politics. The only way to close these loopholes is yet more regulation, and that should be a box that only Pandora would want to open.

Reason only serves to strengthen my conviction that the FEC won’t do anything meaningful to regulate ads from 527 groups, at least not before the election. Even then, it’s likely to take an act of Congress – no pun intended. (Via Instapundit)

Of particular note is an interview of FEC Chairman Bradley Smith. This is one bureaucrat that knows that his agency was set up to enforce laws, not create them.There’s more background in an earlier interview, too. As a pair, these interviews are an excellent introduction on CFR and how it is failing to live up to the intentions of its sponsors… assuming, of course, that said intentions are noble and worthy of aspiration in the first place. A key quote:

[… If] we limited contributions to these 527 groups as they’re called-for the section of the tax code under which they’re organized-I think the money would just swing over to groups that are organized under section 501(c) of the tax code, and those groups are even less regulated than 527s, if you like the regulations. So we’re not really accomplishing anything here, we’re just kind of chasing a tail at this point.

This is an important issue. If you read nothing else, read the first interview I linked to above and skip the rest.