by Anthony Corrado

About the author: Anthony Corrado is an assistant professor of government at Colby College in Waterville, Maine. He served as presidential campaign coordinator for Nebraska senator Bob Kerrey in 1992.

No reform of the campaign finance system can be considered successful if it fails to address the problems created by the rise of soft money [individual and group campaign contributions in any amount that are given to political parties’ national committees for nonfederal election use only] in general election campaigns. Soft money has been the focal point of most of the criticisms leveled against the FECA [Federal Election Campaign Act] in recent years and many observers have advocated an outright ban on this source of funding. It is important to note, however, that soft money has certain merits in addition...