Mike Thompson: “in 1995, the Clinton-Gore campaign began using soft money to fund candidate specific issue ads. They argued that because…”

“in 1995, the Clinton-Gore campaign began using soft money to fund candidate specific issue ads. They argued that because these ads did not use ``magic words'' such as ``vote for'' or ``vote against'' that they were not campaign ads and thus could be funded with soft money. The Republican Party soon followed suit, and the demand for soft money increased exponentially. Soft money receipts by the two major parties exceeded $260 million in 1996. There was little doubt at that point that the soft money raised by the parties was being used for campaign purposes. While addressing a group of DNC donors in 1996, President Clinton made clear that their contributions were helping his campaign, [W]e even gave up one or two of our fundraisers at the end of the year to try to get more money to the Democratic Party rather than my campaigns. My original strategy had been to raise all the money for my campaign this year, so I could spend all my money next year being president, running for president, and raising money for the Senate and House Committees and for the Democratic Party. And then we realized we could run these ads through the Democratic Party, which meant that we could raise money in twenty and fifty and hundred thousand dollar lots, and we didn't have to do it all in thousand dollars, and run down--you know what I can spend which is limited by law. So that's what we've done. But I do have to tell you I'm very grateful to you.…”