Senator Eugene McCarthy Opposed Campaign Finance Reform

See Wall Street Journal Editorial Tuesday, December 13, 2005 (subscription required) Clean Gene's Other Legacy

“Gene McCarthy's achievement in driving his own party's sitting President out
the primary campaign is unlikely to be repeated any time soon. And the reason is
campaign-finance reform.”

“McCarthy took pleasure in being a
maverick politician; he endorsed Ronald Reagan in 1980 because, he said, "anyone
would be better" than Jimmy Carter. And party mavericks are just the sort of
people that party machines love to keep down, or out. McCarthy himself could
never have mounted his last-ditch campaign against Johnson without the backing
of industrialist Stewart Mott and banker Jack Dreyfus”.