Thompson and CFR
CF reader Brett e-mails:
Once upon a time the former Senator from Tennessee supported the execreble McCain-Feingold shut-the-citizens-up act., noted in [Tuesday's] New York Sun by Glen Reynolds.
I wonder about his present position.
And well you might, Brett, since we here at CF have been quite harsh with supporters of McCain-Feingold’s unconstitutional CFR. Here’s what Mr. Thompson had to say most recently:
Many on the right remain angry he supported the campaign finance law sponsored by his friend John McCain. “There are problems with people giving politicians large sums of money and then asking them to pass legislation,” Mr. Thompson says. Still, he notes he proposed the amendment to raise the $1,000 per person “hard money” federal contribution limit.
Conceding that McCain-Feingold hasn’t worked as intended, and is being riddled with new loopholes, he throws his hands open in exasperation. “I’m not prepared to go there yet, but I wonder if we shouldn’t just take off the limits and have full disclosure with harsh penalties for not reporting everything on the Internet immediately.”
I think this shows a willingness on Mr. Thompson’s part to admit error, and to reconsider legislation that hasn’t worked as intended. So while I’m not very happy that he voted for McCain-Feingold, he’s so much better on almost all other topics than any other candidate that I can overlook this as one of our few areas of disagreement, with a fair degree of confidence that given the chance to correct his mistake, he will do so. Because if we have to rule out any candidate who hasn’t agreed or voted 100% our way, we can’t vote at all, since that candidate doesn’t exist.
Thanks for the input, Brett, and in the future feel free to fire away in the comments, too. You won’t hurt my feelings. 
Update! Apparently Mr. Thompson is not quite “Christian” enough for Focus on the Family founder and wannabe king-maker James Dobson. For the rest of us Christians, that’s a feature, not a bug, Jimmy boy.
Update to the update! Unsurprisingly, the MSM has misquoted Mr. Dobson. Allahpundit has the details.
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Is that this type of fear suggests right off the bat that every politician is corrupt.
And if every politician is to be pre-emptively assumed corrupt or corruptible, then why aren't we arresting anyone right now?
The thing I am more comfortable with is the American People creating an outcry and eventually voting the corrupted candidate out of office.
It is dangerous to view the world with an assumption of guilt. It is better to just deal with a problem WHEN and only WHEN you actually have a problem.
I don't think it is inconceivable that a politician would vote NO despite receiving tons of money to vote YES.
Also... The argument most commonly used in the past against CFR is that typically a politician will receive TONS of money to Vote YES and then TONS of money to Vote NO.
And then the politician votes YES and everyone screams bloody murder, despite the fact this was a clean vote!
And the fact that anyone can set up a political action committee to gather up small money from a large population, means that any single individual in America no matter the financial situation can compete with any Big Time Corporation like Wal-Mart.
Geez, don't you guys read any Lefty blogs?
I guess ya'll have seen this one by now.
There does exist such a person that i could vote for.
Me!
Fortunately for all of you i am not crazy enough to run, because if elected and sworn in I would have us at war with half the world by the weekend and the rest by Sunday morning.