Democrats Clinton / Gore drag feet on reform

I noticed that The Clinton Gore Administration did little to work for campaign finance reform. They gave it lip service in their campaigns but little else. Now Gore comes in his address and says he wants it to be the first bill that comes across his desk. Realizing how desperate Gore is to get back in this race one can only wonder if he is pulling the same campaign rhetoric again with little intention later of following up enthusiastically. It is encouraging and comemdable that he made it appear to be one his priorities but if you know that platform of the Reform party and Naders party you can easily see the political benefit of putting that and some other populitst positions on the forefront. At this point I have no reason to believe he is genuinely behind softmoney reform. When Al Gore debated Ross Perot on Larry King a few years back he went in as a hatchet man seemingly with the intent of making Perot look incompetent. To some degree it succeded and some blame perhaps goes to Ross for his own inconsistencies. But what was the result? To blunt the emergence of the Reform party which has led the way for softmoney reform and then to become all but silent on softmoney reform letting a few other congressman lead the way on the issue. Our president and v.p. did nothing on promoting the issue. It's as if they knew they might be shut out of the big corporate money if they became very vocal on reform. Bradley Feingold and McCain were the names you heard when campaign finance reform came up. Why did we never see Clinton or Gore making a plea to the american people and pushing the issue during those days of Mitch McConnell and the hearings on CFR. Without a strong Reform party pushing that issue the two major parties will be afraid to REALLY try for REAL reform. Any so-called reform that leaves out the elimination of softmoney is no real reform at all and will make it next to impossible to achieve any of the other reforms that are sought. I will admit with a grain of salt and for what it's worth that it is encouraging that Al would put campaign finance reform right up front but then he wasn't trying to take any votes away from Bush. He was shooting for the Reform and Nader people. We'll see from here on out. There are of course other issues he must address but let's see if he REALLY drives this issue of campaign finance reform into the debate so much to a position that it is politically impossible for him to back away from it later. If he admits that both parties are guilty of it and articulates that as practical political reality "if one does it then the other has to to stay alive" then he can proclaim "We don't have to live like this anymore" and let's both agree now to change and return the American people's confidence back to their gov't by eliminating softmoney then he can truly position himself to take it to Bush on the issue. It's a great opportunity and we can only hope he REALLY gets in George's face about it. You'll know if it's political or really an issue he feels deeply about in the coming weeks. He's gonna risk offending all those corporate "donors" if he can't push it through and then has to fall back on expecting to get that kind of money next election from those offended not to mention all the subltle and not so subtle flac coming from the republican based corporate owned media later. It will take some political metal( risking an oxymoron). Don't buy into it till you see it and hear it.