Subject: $$$$$$$ in U.S. politics..... (Guru) Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2000 160813 -0600 (CST) From: "Roy L. Beavers"To: emfguru -------------------------------------------------- .....The arrogant and boastful Senator Mitch McConnell speaks too candidly (below) about $$$$$$ in U.S. politics..... Without the promise of unlimited $$$$$$$ "soft money," the Republicans cannot win..... Certainly not HIS kind of Republican.... John McCain, on the other hand, is being beat, too..... For his honesty ... AGAINST that system..... It is noteworthy that Democrat Bill Bradley is hardly doing any better on the same "campaign finance" issue..... Both of the parties now "belong" to the party "pros" who -- in each party -- want to keep the present $$$$$$$ system...... Hey America -- what that means to you ... is that if you let them continue that way ... your democracy no longer belongs to you.......!! It belongs to the guys with the $$$$$$$$....... Cheerio...... Roy Beavers (EMFguru) roy@emfguru.com .....It is better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness..... NEW!!! Website... http://emfguru.com ...................People are more important than profits................. _________________________________________________________________ 01:30 PM ET 01/21/00 Sen.: No Campaign Finance Overhaul By NANCY ZUCKERBROD= Associated Press Writer= ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) _ Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who has led congressional opposition to overhauling campaign finance laws, vowed Friday to beat back any attempts in Congress to pass legislation that resembles last year's failed measure. ``We must never lose soft money,'' McConnell said before a cheering crowd at the 27th annual Conservative Political Action Conference, referring to unlimited donations that unions, corporations and some individuals give to political parties. He contends banning such contributions would violate constitutional free speech protections. And if soft money were prohibited, he said, Democrats would still get their party message out by other means _ through academia, the press and Hollywood _ but Republicans would not. ``We don't have any well-heeled allies out there,'' he said. ``Our business friends are not very good at this sort of thing, and they don't like to do it.'' Last year, for the fourth consecutive time, Congress rejected a bipartisan bill _ co-sponsored by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Russell Feingold, D-Wis. _ that would have overhauled the nation's campaign finance system. McCain, a candidate for the GOP presidential nomination, has been talking about the issue on the campaign trail. ``Regretfully one of our candidates for president has endorsed the left,'' McConnell said of McCain. A McCain spokeswoman said the rib was unfair. ``It's a shame Mitch McConnell continues to ignore the fact that it's Republican ideas, not money, that caused Republicans to win back the Senate in 1994 and will propel us to victory in 2000,'' said spokeswoman Nancy Ives. McConnell, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee that raises money to help elect GOP Senate candidates _ predicted the issue would be debated in the next session of Congress, which begins next week. But he said legislation would not pass unless it was markedly different from last year's bill. Among other things, he said the legislation would have to raise the $1,000 limit on an individual's donation to a single candidate in a primary or general election. Democrats boast of a record-setting fund-raising year in 1999, and reported more than $19 million in the bank as of Jan. 1., much of it soft money. Republicans will not report their totals until the end of the month, but have privately circulated the word that they are likely to have several million dollars less. _________________________________________________________________ Archive provided courtesy of WaveGuide, http://www.wave-guide.org Reprinted with permission of Roy Beavers, http://www.emfguru.com