Eminent Domain

Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee has something interesting to say about the McCain-Feingold campaign finance laws. Huckabee, a potential 2008 presidential contender, thinks that the current campaign finance "reforms" unfairly benefit the federal politicians who wrote them...

"If you're a senator, you can take the money you raise in a Senate campaign and transfer it to a presidential, but you can't take money you raise in a state campaign and transfer that to a federal campaign," Huckabee, a Republican, told The Associated Press in an interview Friday.

"McCain was very smart in creating a system where he could take all of this Senate money that he had and turn it over to his presidential campaign to give him a distinct advantage over anyone else who ran," he said.

This point was made about Senator Clinton's Senate campaign war chest. She raised boatloads of money for her re-election for her extremely safe Senate seat. A lot of that money is now waiting for an 08 presidential run. Senators made out pretty well in our enlightened, reformed campaign finance regime.

Of course, McCain never intended the law to work this way...

A spokesman for McCain's committee said transferring the $1 million remaining from his 2004 re-election bid to a presidential campaign is an option, but denied that was a motivation for McCain's campaign finance legislation.

"That wasn't the intent of the law in any way, shape or form," said spokesman Craig Goldman

Just a pleasant surprise, I guess.