That is what campaign finance reform has achieved -- discouraging, if not actually eliminating, non-wealthy Americans from running for office and forcing those who do run to devote their lives to asking for money; while at the same time pushing more and more extremely wealthy incompetents into office.

And I haven't even mentioned campaign finance reform's undermining of elementary freedoms. Who is the government to tell an American whom he can give his money to? So long as the giving is completely transparent -- i.e., the public knows exactly who has given any candidate money and exactly how much -- people should be allowed to spend as much on another person as on themselves.

I understand why liberals support it -- by limiting access to the political process, incumbents and, most significantly, the media are empowered. Any time a few wealthy people can boost the chances of a Republican candidate, the power of the liberal media to influence elections is reduced.

That Sen. Russell Feingold, a liberal Democrat, would support campaign finance reform therefore makes perfect sense. That a Republican senator -- let alone one who calls himself a conservative -- would do so boggles the mind.

When asked about campaign finance reform in the last Republican debate, he argued for it and by extension for the Senate bill that bears his name -- McCain-Feingold. He argued that such reform was necessary because politics is "awash in money." Of course, campaign finance reform has not reduced the role of money at all. It has merely shifted it to organizations that have far less transparency than candidates have and ensured that the wealthy disproportionately run for office.

That is how damaging campaign finance reform has been to American democracy. And that is why John McCain, a good man and a great American, cannot now get my vote. Which is quite something considering that I voted for him against a governor from Texas in the 2000 California presidential primary.

Now let's get Rudy Giuliani's views on the matter. The former mayor told me a few months ago that he had not given it much thought. He needs to.