October 13, 2010 3:41PM # The Primary Purpose of McCain-Feingold Revealed By [John Samples](https://www.cato.org/people/john-samples) --- SHARE Kenneth Vogel offers an [unexpected insight](http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=A3E0798B-DA5D-A6E8-156F3ECF53D3D701) into the nature of campaign finance regulation: > “\[Wisconsin Senator Russell\] Feingold faces an uphill battle against a novice opponent, who, perhaps ironically, has been the beneficiary of hundreds of thousands of dollars in ads attacking Feingold that would have been prohibited had McCain-Feingold remained intact.” In other words, if Feingold’s campaign finance law had not proven to be contrary to the U.S. Constitution, he might well *not* be facing “an uphill battle” to serve a fourth term in Washington. The political speech that is causing Feingold problems would have been prohibited in that situation. But the First Amendment favors speech and not the re-election needs of senators. Oddly, Vogel writes as if the freed political speech (“ads attacking Feingold”) is a bug rather than a feature of current law. ##### Related Tags [Government and Politics](https://www.cato.org/government-politics), [Constitutional Law](https://www.cato.org/constitutional-law), [Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies](https://www.cato.org/robert-levy-center-constitutional-studies) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).