A Soft-Money Solicitation That’s Soft on Principle

A week after again calling for a ban on “soft money” political contributions, President Clinton stood before an audience of fat-cat Democrats and appealed for--you guessed it--generous donations of soft money to support next year’s Democratic congressional candidates and reduce the party’s huge debt. The White House rationalized this conspicuous policy inconsistency in the usual way: So long as the law allows it, Democrats have no choice but to raise as much soft money as they can just to stay competitive with generally better-heeled Republicans. In other words, there’s no point in talking about principle when political viability is the only issue that matters.

The truth, of course, is that most members of Congress, Republicans and Democrats, are quite content with having the kind of loopholes in the campaign financing law that last year allowed more than $200 million in mainly big-money contributions to be sent to the two parties’ national committees--so-called soft money, political contributions that make a mockery of the laws that seek to regulate federal campaign financing. That’s why a sensible and certainly needed bill to seal the loopholes, sponsored by Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), has for years been unable to draw majority support.

Until Congress musters the principle and the courage to act, big contributors will continue to buy influence and special favors, and the corrupting power of money in politics will roll on unchecked.

It remains to be seen how persuasive Clinton’s pitch to the major donors will be. The Democrats are $16 million in debt, they are in the process of returning $3 million in illegal or dubious contributions, they are running up huge legal bills dealing with the investigations into their previous fund-raising activities and they face a major fight in next year’s congressional elections.

Clinton spoke to 40 big contributors and asked each to give or raise $250,000 over the next two years. If that happens, $10 million will flow into the party’s treasury, which for the president would be not a bad night’s work. In fact, it would be precisely the kind of megabucks success story that helps assure that campaign finance reforms will continue to be postponed.