There's an interesting article by John Fund in Opinion Journal today, about how the "grass-roots" cry for campaign finance reform was really astroturf bought and paid for by Pew:

Mr. Treglia admits that campaign-finance supporters had to try to hoodwink Congress because "they had lost legitimacy inside Washington because they didn't have a constituency that would punish Congress if they didn't vote for reform."

If that constituency didn't exist then, I'll bet it's even smaller now, with more people reading blogs. I hope that someone on the Hill reading this decides to introduce a bill that not only repeals McCain-Feingold, but also eliminates all of this donation-limit nonsense, and replaces it with a bill requiring nothing but full disclosure of any cash contributions from all sources, in whatever amount.

Classic “1984” doublespeak…It has always been, and will always be true. “If you want to find out what’s really going on Follow the Money. Unfortunately our ability to follow the money has been constantly been thwarted by members and groups on both sides of the isle. Can you say Constitutional Amendment?

> If you want to find out what’s really going on Follow the Money.

That's never been more than half-true.

Lots of folks are motivated by other things.
And then there's the folks who directly benefit. They work for free.

Why should these non-monetary efforts be treated differently?

"follow the money"

For individual people, this does not always hold up, but in general....

> For individual people, this does not always hold up, but in general....

it misses a huge part of the story.

It misses almost all of the do-gooders, such as the "for the children" lobby. It misses most organizations. It misses news organizations on the take, which is surprisingly common.