John Kerry: “to quote Yogi Berra, perhaps slightly inaccurately, ``This seems like deja vu all over again.'' It was over 20 years ago…”

“to quote Yogi Berra, perhaps slightly inaccurately, ``This seems like deja vu all over again.'' It was over 20 years ago now when this Nation suffered through the embarrassments and dangers of Watergate. The Nation was treated to the spectacle of testimony about the Attorney General of the United States and the Secretary of Commerce shaking down the captains of industry for campaign contributions, and hauling briefcases full of hundred dollar bills. Americans learned about expenditures that totaled over $200 million in 1996-valued dollars. They saw a genuine constitutional crisis that toppled a Presidency and posed much greater risks for our constitutional democracy. And they understandably were not pleased. In the fallout from Watergate, the Members of Congress got the message from their constituents to fix the problems that permitted the campaign finance abuses that composed an important part of that scandal. The Congress responded by enacting a program of voluntary spending limits for Presidential election campaigns in exchange for providing public financing for Presidential candidates in both the primaries and the general election. And, Mr. President, it has worked. It has worked superbly. In all the Presidential elections since 1974, we have never again seen the abuses that the 1972 election will infamously represent to all who lived through it or have learned about it from the history books.”