"Apparently Sen. Feingold believes that it's better to have an ill-informed electorate, and that we shouldn't be able to use our 1st Amendment rights to put a voice to our ideas, "

Let me get you on the record here -- you actually think the various "Americans for American Americans" groups are contributing to the debate? You think these groups deserve a voice? Let me re-enact a little play for you in 3 lines:

Lobbyist: I've got 5 million to spend, Senator. I can spend it with you or against you. We need our subsidies.

Senator: I'm going to do the right thing, not the corrupt thing.

Americans for American Americans: "Senator X supports wasteful government spending and death panels"

(Note that the lobbyist who was asking for money is now running ads accusing the senator of spending too much. That's ok, because it works.)

It's a straw man because not only does McCain-Feingold forbid behavior like you illustrate, but also perfectly reasonable advocacy. So the NRA can't say "don't vote for Mr. X because he's against the 2nd Amendment". Pro-choice people can't say "don't vote for Mr. Z because he's voted for blah blah". These are precisely the types of speech that the 1st Amendment was intended (in part) to protect, and McCain-Feingold eviscerates it.

It's a red herring, because it's attacking something that's not wrong anyway (and fails to attack what I believe you thing is wrong).

It fails to address the implied corruption, bribery, and lobbying. McCain-Feingold has nothing to do with that stuff, yet it's the central evil in your little play.

And the last line of your play: Americans for American Americans: "Senator X supports wasteful government spending and death panels" is not wrong. Every person has the right to put up a sign on his front door, or put up a web site, describing his own political views, and advocating for or against specific candidates. Every one of us also has the right to associate with who we wish, and in so doing, pool our funds to make that web site even spiffier, or buy a TV ad. I believe that your objection to this is completely content-based: you dislike the kinds of messages that are being commnunicated; you think they're dangerous, and want to stop them.

But even if I'm wrong, your argument otherwise serves to bolster my original point ("don't vote unless you know the issues"). We all have the responsibility to understand what's going on. We're supposed to be adults with a conscience and the ability to weigh and judge the merits. If you don't do so, you've got no business voting.

Campaign finance laws make it so that candidates supported by passionate minorities cannot be heard. If you are not 1) personally rich or 2) a mainstream candidate in a mainstream party you have no opportunity to speak. This is ironic considering such laws are usually passed as a way to fight "entrenched interests", but they do exactly the opposite.

>"Sorry that you've been brainwashhed."

That tone is a little overboard for this website community.

The inability to throw millions of soft money into the race made it harder to fight the established political interest? Or made it harder to harness established lobbyist interest?

Under McCain-Feingold, candidates can self-fund for any amount, and donations are limited to $2300/head, that's $4600 for married couples. If you can't find 1000 people to support you, you shouldn't be in politics. If you can't find 1000 people to support you but have one guy cutting 10 million dollar checks, you DEFINITELY shouldn't be in politics.

It is self-evident that if you limit the amount of money that people can spend on advertising their political views that niche candidates and less popular ideas will be hurt the most. Unions can compel donations from their millions of members, your Clintons, Obamas, and McCains of the world get the full support and advertising of the major parties. But offbeat candidates will have their speech capped by McCain-Feingold, unless they are personally rich (Ross Perot).

We had many outside projects (independent advertisements and the like) that couldn't get cash because so many of us had donated our max amount to the campaign (even though few of us were personally rich). There's something weird about being an American and not being allowed to support a candidate because it is against the law. I would much rather have a rough and tumble, wide-open contest in the finest democratic tradition than Democrats and Republicans writing laws about who is allowed to speak.

You seem to want to outlaw outside advertisements because they don't meet your standards for quality. Cool man, cool. I just want you to consider how that position fits within the American liberal tradition.

>" If you can't find 1000 people to support you, you shouldn't be in politics. "

That sounds like an incumbent protection act to me.

We had a few hundred thousand supporters, ended up getting a few million votes! Even found a loophole in McCain-Feingold and set up one venture as a for-profit enterprise (you ever see the "Hillary 2008" t-shirts at airports? Same loophole).

We did okay, considering. But man, I just want my freedom back.

I want to re-regulate outside advertisements because they are almost always the product of shady dealings. Citizens United happened this year and we're setting records for the amount of money spent, during a frickin midterm. And guys like you complain about corruption in DC. No sense of irony?