Divided Court Says Government Can Ban 'Soft Money': "A 5-to-4 majority upheld most provisions of the McCain-Feingold Law, finding that the law's ban on soft-money donations was not an unconstitutional curb on free speech, as its opponents have argued, but rather a legitimate response to perceptions that big money has stained the political system. The court also upheld two other pillars of the law: a ban on the solicitation of soft money by federal candidates, and a prohibition against political advertisements by special interest groups in the weeks just before an election. 'The idea that large contributions to a national party can corrupt or create the appearance of corruption of federal candidates and officeholders is neither novel nor implausible,' the court said in a summary of its 298-page decision as it alluded to debates about the potent mix of money and politics over the years." Today's decision means that the candidates for president, the House and Senate can run their campaigns under the fund-raising rules laid down in 2002, when Congress passed the McCain-Feingold Law after years of bitter argument over how political contributions should be regulated. (The law, formally the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, is usually known by its chief Senate sponsors, John McCain, Republican of Arizona, and Russell D. Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin.) "We are under no illusion," Justices John Paul Stevens and Sandra Day O'Connor wrote for the majority. "Money, like water, will always find an outlet. What problems will arise, and how Congress will respond, are concerns for another day." http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/10/national/10CND-SCOT.html?hp=&pagewanted=all&position=

Chicago Tribune | Gore Endorses Dean for Party Nomination: "Gore said Dean 'really is the only candidate who has been able to inspire at the grass-roots level all over the country.' He said the former Vermont governor also was the only Democratic candidate who made the correct judgment about the Iraq war. 'I realized it's only one of the issues, but my friends, this nation has never in our two centuries and more made a worse foreign policy mistake,' Gore told the Iowa crowd. " http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-gore-dean,1,6428598.story