David Broder offers this column. About the column, a blog reader writes:

Check out this David Broder column today, the upshot of which is the surprising — and to my mind ridiculous — conclusion that BCRA has “produce[d] more unintended negative consequences than benefits.”
Broder seems to assume — without even providing any arguments in support on the points — that the spending of money on elections (including by the candidates) necessarily is in and of itself a bad thing, and that a (or the) purpose of BCRA was to get money out of campaigns. No mention of corruption, of the role of parties in making officeholders beholden to contributors, etc.
And he is shocked, shocked, by the “unanticipated” phenomenon that folks are actually raising hard money (including on the Internet!) in amounts permitted by BCRA, and choosing not to accept public financing when hard money contributions are more lucrative — as though the statute doesn’t contemplate exactly that.

Thanks for writing. I would add that Broder is simply wrong as a factual matter that McCain-Feingold backers “did not anticipate that the ban would simply divert the flow of big contributions into other channels.” Indeed, this was one of the main arguments made against the law when it was being debated.