Republican and Conservative political analysis and commentary

A federal court yesterday loosened restrictions on political advertising by corporations, unions and other special interest groups, and poked the first big hole in the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, a campaign finance reform law popularly know as "McCain-Feingold." If the ruling withstands a review by the U.S. Supreme Court, it will be huge news for the campaign business.

The court ruled that such groups can run political advertising during the peak election season, despite McCain-Feingold's ban on such ads during the last 60 days of a campaign, and may even mention candidates by name in commercials so as long as the ads are trying to influence public policy, rather than sway an election.

The McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law had banned such groups from using unrestricted money to run advertisements that name candidates two months before a general election or one month before a primary.

While I believe McCain-Feingold was an anti-First Amendment incumbent-protection law designed to restrict campaign speech and that the court should have ruled that any restrictions on what any individual or group could say in a campaign ad was anathema to the basic founding principles of America, the ruling is half a victory and sets the stage for more progress at undoing McCain-Feingold's restrictions on political speech.

As the Los Angeles Times says, the ruling cuts "the first hole" in McCain-Feingold and  "sets the stage for the Supreme Court to reconsider" that law.

Here's the Associated Press story on the ruling. Also, the Washington Post story, which seems to accept the odd notion that the federal government ought to regulate the content of political speech broadcast during a campaign. 

While McCain-Feingold takes a hit from the courts, will one of its co-authors, Sen. John McCain, take a hit in his presidential election campaign because of the unpopular measure that bears his name?

Glenn Reynolds, the "Instapundit" blogger, thinks it will hurt McCain in the blogosphere, at least, writing this post a few days ago:

THE BLOGS VS. JOHN MCCAIN: I think that John McCain realizes that bloggers are unhappy with him over McCain-Feingold -- he said as much in our podcast interview -- but I don't think he grasps just how unhappy, or how much this hurts him. I suspect that (at least some of) his staff does, though. But what can he do about it?

Well. For starters, he could file legislation to repeal the speech-regulating aspects of McCain-Feingold. Which, come to think of it, is pretty much the whole thing.

If he doesn't, perhaps some enterprising rival campaign will run a series of "issue advocacy ads" during the last 30 days before the GOP primary in each state, urging viewers to "Call John McCain and tell him you want him to support the First Amendment by repealing McCain-Feingold."

After all, the court just said such ads would be permissible.