The Dodd-Frank Banking Fee

According to a story in Investment.com, the $5 monthly fee bank of America intends to impose to recover losses incurred by the Dodd-Frank bill probably should be named the Dodd-Frank fee.

The Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act put a limit on fees banks could collect from sellers when their customers make debit card purchases — cutting 44 cent fees to 21 cents.

“Throwing their weight around at the height of the banking crisis, House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank of Massachusetts and Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut vowed to stick it to banks. They blamed them for the mess to cover up the fact that they forced banks to lend to favored constituencies who could not repay.

“The two Democrats pushed through the much-vaunted Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which President Obama signed and touted as one of the signature accomplishments of his presidency.

“That act, which included a micromanaging amendment on fees, carried a $2.9 billion implementation cost for that alone over five years, according to the Government Accountability Office...

“The ‘economics of offering a debit card have changed with recent regulations,’ a bank spokeswoman told ABC News Friday.

“BofA says it stands to lose $2 billion from the arbitrary Durbin price-fixing amendment and now has no choice but to make up for the lost revenue some other way.”

House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank of Massachusetts and Sen. Chris Dodd, once associated with the senate’s banking committee and now a gold plated Hollywood lobbyist, felt compelled to hammer banks after the mortgage industry in the United States went belly-up, largely in response to impositions imposed on them by Dodd and Frank in a successful attempt to encourage banks to lower their lending standards so that people who could not afford mortgages would be able to buy houses. Canada, which maintained standards widely observed here in the United States before Dodd and Frank began to micromanage the banking industry, has few mortage and housing problems.

Dodd also was principally responsible for undoing the last remnants of the Glass Steagall Act, a measure adopted during the enlightened administration of Franklin Roosevelt that prevented rapacious financial institutions from meddling with the bankbooks of Dodd’s constituents.

And here we are – in lowdive.

McMahon’s Second Throw Of The Dice

Linda McMahon having thrown her hat once again into the political ring, the question arises: What are her chances? Mrs. McMahon will run for Senator Joe Lieberman’s soon to be vacant seat in the U.S. Congress.

On the left, the media once again is preparing to draw their long knives from their scabbards. Mrs. McMahon’s background as CEO of World Wide Wrestling, since renamed World Wide Entertainment (WWE), has freed much of the left of the necessity of thinking seriously about her positions, such as they are and will be, on important issues of the day. In lieu of reasoned criticism, Video clips of Man Mountain Indian wrestler Dalip Singh Rana hoisting a victim over his shoulders and slamming him to the mat may be deployed against her, as was the case in her last campaign.

The cast of characters this time around will be different: Attorney General Richard Blumenthal has moved up in the world into the U.S. Senate. He was a formidable opponent for a number of reasons. The Attorney General’s reputation as the St. George of Connecticut politics was difficult for any Republican candidate to overcome. His popularity, larger in Connecticut and more expansive than that of Dalip Singh Rana, much of which was self-generated in a twenty year series of seemingly endless, self-absorbed press releases, tends to clot the analytical synapses of voters’ brains. Going in, Mr. Blumenthal, trailing behind himself a cloud of military murk, enjoyed what turned out to be an insuperable advantage. Mr. Blumenthal lied, several times, concerning his service in the military. He said he had served in Vietnam when he had not and was called out by the New York Times and others. The imposture did him no good, but Mr. Blumenthal squirreled himself away from media stalkers and survived the ordeal un-decapitated. When as a newly minted senator Mr. Blumenthal applied for a position on a committee overseeing veterans, none of his comrades in the congress so much as blinked.

But Mr. Blumenthal is, as is said in the Icelandic sagas, “now out of the story.” And whatever may be said of Democrats vying for Lieberman’s seat, neither U.S. Rep Chris Murphy or his likely primary opponents are Mr. Blumenthal, including former Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz, whose rubberized reputation easily rebounds from blows that would shatter Mr. Dalip Singh Rana.

The 2012 campaign script is likely to be different as well.

President Barack Obama, the lodestone of the last presidential election, has, according to polls even in bluer than blue Connecticut, fallen out of favor. Mr. Obama’s positives have crashed along with the economy, and no one in Connecticut expects the economy to improve any time soon. The state was ten years recovering from the post-Lowell Weicker recession. The Obama recession will be deeper, longer and more intractable. As jobs go, so goes the presidency. Some so called “moderate” Democrats in the congressional delegation have put a three foot pole between themselves and their Democratic leader; as the economy continues to go sour, the pole, like Pinocchio’s nose, will elongate.

There are differences of strategy between Republicans and Democrats that easily could be exploited by Mrs. McMahon.

Democrats, as a general rule, are concerned with creating jobs, preferably stamped “made in Washington,” for they are not interested in fostering for example energy jobs tied to non-green producers they wish to discredit. Republicans generally busy themselves with increasing prosperity – not the same thing -- and continued prosperity depends to a large extent on an interrupted supply of developed and available energy products. Democrats want to regulate everything but government. Republicans are interested in regulating and reducing targeted rather than general governmental regulations they perceive as binding down a no longer competitive bound Gulliver, the private economy. Democratic programs of a “made in Washington” variety privatize the rewards of companies too big to fail, while at the same time socializing debt, which is assumed by taxpayers. Taxpayers thus bear the costs incurred by failed “too big to fail” companies, while earned profits, including taxpayer subsidies, are parceled out to failed CEOs and somnolent boards of directors.

In the next election, Republicans will be attempting to convert the above paragraph to an easily digestible bumper sticker?

The McMahon campaign must discover some means of corralling women’s votes. Mrs. McMahon very easily could surprise those in the legacy media who suppose her upcoming campaign will be a reprise of her previous losing battle by, for instance, unreeling three or four major speeches on topics of general interest that will satisfy the media’s lust for intellectual probity, not considered to be her strong suit. Those who know Mrs. McMahon well know she is a very quick study passionately committed to certain conservative propositions that just might surprise the state’s blue media. The bump on her – that there is no political there there – is a wildly exaggerated piece of Democratic campaign propaganda.

A Governor Of Unions?

Governor Dannel Malloy banged the knuckles of some state unions when SEBAC, a coalition of union leaders, failed to pass what he called “Plan A,” a budget that some legislators friendly to unions thought was inordinately friendly to unions. Sen. Edith Prague, long a supporter of union interests, said at the time she thought union members who had voted down Plan A were mad to have spurned a plan so favorable to their interests.

The governor had concocted at the same time a default Plan B that simply was not a serious contractual proposal; Plan B was designed to bludgeon recalcitrant union members into voting for Plan A. Union leaders, at the behest of the governor, then unilaterally redrafted union rules so as to facilitate a favorable vote on a slightly readjusted Plan A. The intimidation, along with the compliance of union leaders, worked, and Plan A2 finally was adopted by unions months after the General Assembly, dominated by Democrats, had voted to pass Plan A.

There was some grumbling at the time among a few legislators conversant with the separation of power doctrine: They wondered whether, having voted to accept a budget that would in the near future be subject to alterations imposed on it by unions and the governor, they had in essence surrendered their constitutional obligations to an undemocratic plenipotentiary process. But their scruples were not inhibiting, and in due course a budget, thought by some to be out of balance even now, finally was set in concrete. Apparently, constitutional scruples in the constitution state are more easily disposed of now that the state has become a one party operation.

In mid-September, addressing the AFL-CIO annual convention at Foxwoods Casino Mr. Malloy sought to quell fears that the governor’s lifelong affection for unions hadf suffered a rupture. Previously, Mr. Malloy had been making cooing sounds in the direction of Connecticut’s larger business and awarding carefully selected firms millions of dollars as a part of his First Five Plan.

At the event, Mr. Malloy was praised by executive director of AFSCME Council 4 Sal Luciano for being one of the few governors in the nation that had decided to raise taxes to balance his budget. Mr. Luciano thought much of the anger over the concession agreement between unions and the governor could be traced to poor communications and pronounced himself pleased that the pro-union governor had not declared war on labor: “It’s the first time in a long time we’ve had a governor that hasn’t actively declared war on the labor movement.”

The governor was bathed in warm applause when, contrasting himself with other more brutal governors, he said the final agreement between unions and the executive office was a necessary linchpin “to making sure we did not have to take apart our higher educational system. That was a lynchpin to making sure we didn’t have to cut aid to every municipality in the state.”

Mr. Malloy “delivered” to unions recently by issuing an executive order that will pave the way for the unionization of day care workers and personal care attendants. The order, some queasy legislators say, violates an explicit separation of legislative and executive powers and may be Mr. Malloy’s way of further soothing union restiveness.

Following his soothing address before AFSCME, Mr. Malloy hopped down to Greenwich to assure hedge fund managers he was not, as they might have supposed wrongly from his address to AFSCME, antagonistic towards the captains of industry and Wall Street. The hedgies fear excessive regulation, and the governor showed up to soften their angst.

“There is too much regulation and decisions are made far too slowly,” the governor told the group in his keynote address at the Connecticut Hedge Fund Association’s Global Alpha Forum. “Let me very clear I’m not interested in more regulation. I’m trying to streamline regulation. We know the old adage that time is money… we need to move more rapidly and responsively.”

One newspaper noted that “In a further assurance to an industry that an audience member termed the state’s ‘crown jewel,’ Malloy said that he is not in favor of moving to regulate beyond federal policy.”

The governor gave no indication that he would be willing to work with Connecticut’s wall-to-wall Democratic congressional delegation to lop off the Dodd-Frank bill some regulatory hydra heads. Nor has he been asked by the legacy media whether he intends to lobby other Democrats in the U.S. Congress to pare back onerous federal regulations on behalf of his new hedgie friends. The locution – “Let me very clear I’m not interested in more…” – was last used by the governor in multiple pre-campaign speeches with reference to tax increases. As it turned out, Mr. Malloy was not unfriendly to new taxes.

Will Lieberman’s Endorsement Of Shays Matter?

An endorsement by current U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman in the race for the senate seat he will vacate when his term expires just might, unlike the usual light-as-air endorsements of has-been politicians, carry some weight.

Mr. Lieberman is loathed by Democratic leftists in Connecticut. Hell hath no fury like that of a progressive scorned.

Progressive radicals, feeling their oats, were prepared to rejoice heartily and even strew a few rose petals at the senator’s feet had he yielded to them following the Lieberman-Lamont primary, which was won by progressive heartthrob Ned Lamont. Mr. Lieberman, however, was not prepared to go quietly into that good night of whipped politicians; and so, having lost the primary, he challenged Mr. Lamont in a three way general election – and won.

This was not the way to win friends and influence Connecticut progressives. If the progressive movement in Connecticut had an imam in it, a political fatwa would have been urged against Mr. Lieberman by progressives such as former Lamont campaign director Tom Swan, the head of the far left Connecticut Citizens Action Group (CCAG).

Mr. Lieberman’s political activity in the senate following his general election defeat of Mr. Lamont has only enraged the progressives further. While Mr. Lieberman, a professed Independent, has caucused with Democrats in the Senate, he has, on some issues of importance to progressives -- war and peace, for example -- gone his own way. Mr. Lieberman’s primary loss to Mr. Lamont , the senator claimed, liberated him to be his own man. In this, he has followed in the wake of another party-independent, former senator and governor, no-man-but-yours Lowell Weicker, infamous for using his party as a foil to advance his own political interests.

Now comes what may be Mr. Lieberman’s final bow-out blow – a possible endorsement of Republican Chris Shays for Mr. Lieberman’s’ soon to be open seat. According to a recent report in “The Hill,” Mr. Shays, who has announced he intends to challenge in a Republican primary former WWE CEO Linda McMahon, is a longtime friend and colleague of Mr. Lieberman.

Mr. Lieberman does carry some weight in what used to be called moderate wing of the Democratic Party, but in recent years that wing has been clipped by lean and hungry progressives, even as the moderate wing of the Republican Party has moved rightward. The political gap between Republicans and Democrats over the past couple of decades has not become deeper or wider; but as bridges continue to be burned, the gap becomes more and more unbridgeable. Friendly gestures across the political aisle are now considered treacherous displays of near treason by those in warring camps with knives in their brains. The vital center now has been cleft in two. There are two moderate centers, a remnant in New England within the Republican Party and a Southern moderate faction within the Democratic Party.

Mr. Shays is part of New England’s nearly vanished moderate Republican nub, and though he has said his eyes are fixed on the general election prize, he must get over the hump of a primary to compete in a general election. A world has changed since Mr. Shays last strutted his moderation in the U.S. House of Representatives. Losing a race to present U.S. Rep. Jim Himes in 2008, Mr. Shays, who following his defeat left Connecticut for points south, became the last Republican moderate in New England, the first time in almost 150 years that no Republican represented the New England states in the nation’s capital.

Some have accused Mr. Shays of being a carpetbagger, a foolish claim easily disposed of. The real sticking point is that, the political vectors having changed radically since Mr. Shays left the congress, time may have made of moderation a pointless exercise in futility.

Where is the point where a moderate may safely stand as Connecticut and the union both totter towards a Grecian denouement?

Greenberg Calls Upon Donovan To Quit Redistricting Committee

Mark Greenberg, a Republican running for the House in the 5th District, has called upon Chis Donovan, the Democratic Speaker of the state House running for the same seat, to step down from the redistricting commission that will recommend new borders for Connecticut’s five U.S. House of Representative districts.
The committee is split evenly between Republicans and Democrats, and Mr. Donovan is the only member of the commission who will be seeking higher office.

Other members of the commission are:

Senator Martin Looney, (D, 11th District)
Representative Sandy Nafis, (D, Newington)
Senate President Pro Tempore Donald Williams, (D, 29th District)
Minority Leader Representative Lawrence Cafero, (R, 142nd District)
Senator Len Fasano, (R, 34th District)
Senate Minority Leader John McKinney, (R, 28th District)
Representative Arthur O'Neill, (R, 69th District)


“Chris Donovan,” Mr. Greenberg noted in a press release, “is a declared candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives in the 5th District and his participation on the redistricting commission is as blatant a conflict of interest as I have ever seen. In fact, I’m surprised that Chris does not see this for himself.

“A declared candidate sitting on the panel that is recommending new district boundaries gives the absolute worst appearance. Our elected officials must be committed to transparent and open government. By not stepping down, Chris Donovan is engaging in the same old back-room politics and seeking an unfair political advantage. If he refuses to step down, I believe Connecticut voters will see right through his true motives.”

Perhaps. But the true motives of any legislative mover in the General Assembly are hardly transparent. Mr. Donovan – the Speaker of the State House, a position comparable in influence to President of the Senate Don Williams, both of whom steer the business of the General Assembly – is hardly an equal among equals.

In the political barnyard, George Orwell noted in his novel “Animal Farm,” everyone is equal; but the pigs are more equal. Both the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House wield more influence than any other legislative members of the Gerrymander Commission.

So inordinate is Donovan's influence in the General Assembly that at times the Speaker has overturned the gubernatorial ambitions of both Republicans and Democrats. Last June, when SEBAC and Governor Dannel Malloy were pulling budgetary taffy, the coalition of state unions having rejected the governor’s Plan A, Mr. Malloy wanted the General Assembly (read: Mr. Donovan and Mr. Williams) to pass a bill that would calculate pension payouts without including overtime pay.

The bill passed in the Senate but met grief in the House when Mr. Donovan, long a step-and-fetch-it for unions, refused to bring it up for a vote.

Much later, after Mr. Malloy touched SEBAC with his cattle prod, forcing union leaders to accede to PlanA2, the governor was asked by Hartford Courant reporter Jon Lender what should happen now with the bill in the House.
While the SEBAC-Malloy-Donovan-Williams boosted from three to five years the pension calculation method employed for new employees hired since July, tens of thousands of employees were untouched by the more severe pension calculations – until 2022, ten years down the road.

Never mind, said Mr. Malloy, overtime in the future would be reduced through better management practices. Mr. Donovan, now running for the U.S. House in the Connecticut’s 5th District, no doubt appreciated Mr. Malloy’s accommodation. Mr. Donovan will need union support to give him an edge over his competitors in the upcoming election.


The now infamous Gerrymander – a district so shaped by influential politicians to give them an advantage they might not otherwise enjoy in a (small “d”) democratic election – was named after governor of Massachusetts Elbridge Gerry, who signed a bill that redrew state election districts, one of which was so distorted that it resembled in outline a salamander.


The Gerrymander Commission should not permit Mr. Donovan, the largest and most influential pig in the legislative barnyard, to shape a district he hopes to claim in a democratic election. Mr. Donovan is the only legislative member in the above list currently running in a U.S, Senate district that may change as a result of his participation in the committee over which he will wield, by virtue of his position as House leader, an inordinate influence.


Mr. Donovan should withdraw from the commission. Failing that, he should be booted out for the following reason: The Speaker’s participation will forever taint a process that should be non-partisan, fair and un-piggy.

Blumenthal’s Two Faces

A newspaper has noted in an editorial rough-up of U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal that energy costs in Connecticut are among the highest in the nation, owing in part to the former attorney general’s itchy trigger finger.


As an AG with attitude, Mr. Blumenthal, who even now understands little about how the free market works, very quickly intervened in a host of self-serving situations to prevent an increase in the supply of widely available energy products.


The easiest, quickest and most rational way to reduce the cost of a product is to increase its supply. When we have a surfeit of oranges or gas or any other consumable product, the price of the product is reduced and the consumer benefits from the abundant supply because his monthly costs are correspondingly reduced, which means he has more money to spend on products that may disappoint some politicians such as Mr. Blumenthal – say, gas guzzling cars or wine, women and song – but the trickling down to consumers of abundant low cost products is what keeps the country humming along.


When, during his successful run for the U.S. Senate, Mr. Blumenthal’s Republican opponent asked the attorney general to explain how a job was created, the poor thing stumbled like a doe with its hoof caught in a snare through a tortuous and wrongheaded explanation. He hobbled along on his shattered foot as best he could, but his answer suggested that all the good and acceptable products would in the future be stamped “made in Washington D.C.”





As attorney general, Mr. Blumenthal’s quarrel with Connecticut’s energy suppliers centered upon the energy product itself; even now he regards some energy products – nuclear, oil derivatives and other affordable resources frowned upon by radical neo-pagan Greens – as the devil’s paw, toxic to Mother Earth and less friendly than, say, bird slaughtering wind turbines and other futuristic unaffordable and undeveloped energy sources.


If Mr. Blumenthal “was responsible for anything,” the paper observed, “it was choking off supply while demand was increasing, and that meant rising rates for families and businesses. Indeed, while he was attorney general, inflation-adjusted electric rates in the state rose almost six times faster than the national average.”


Now that Mr. Blumenthal has moved from the attorney general’s office to the U.S. Senate, he is finding it difficult to leave behind his old public persona. Old habits die hard. The new face Mr. Blumenthal will unveil as he progresses up the Beltway ladder -- a senator “who is willing to work hard for Connecticut” -- is yet in its fetal stage. The new mask is not yet in place on either of Mr. Blumenthal’s faces.


And so, when Connecticut Light and Power (CL&P) intimated it might raise rates to cover losses from the recent tropical storm, an unforgiving and relentless Mr. Blumenthal dashed off one of his attorney general philippics denouncing the energy supplier.


Sure, the hurricane -- downgraded in Connecticut to a tropical storm – resulted in unusual expenditures. But now, when some householders in the state were suffering from the battering, was no time to recover costs by raising prices. Mr. Blumenthal did not in his letter suggest a more convenient time.


Mr. Blumenthal was troubled, very troubled, by a suggestion made in a state-wide newspaper that CL&P “will be considering steps to recoup financial losses from this storm by raising utility rates on the very customers who have been left without power. This suggestion for raising rates is unacceptable. I urge CL&P to immediately and publicly disavow and abandon this idea and assure the people of Connecticut that they will not be forced to bear this additional burden.”


There was no immediate disavowal forthcoming and, had Mr. Blumenthal retained his options as attorney general, his profound disappointment would have been accompanied by a threat to sue the toxic producing energy suppliers, thus reducing their obscene profit margin, thus forcing CL&P to maintain costs through attrition – worker reduction, a reliance on out of state staff and resources, annoying expedients that make it less possible for energy suppliers to respond with alacrity to occasional tropical storms that race through the state like media hungry politicians who leave in their wake shattered economies and businesses too big to fail that ultimately must be rescued by frequent transfusions of taxpayer’s blood.



And so the merry dance goes on and on, benefiting lawyers who live in regulatory webs like spiders, politicians on the make, and sundry other public nuisances – but not those consumers who ultimately bear the costs of political excess.

Shays Promises Slugfest

In a brief interview with Hartford Courant writer Rick Green, former U.S. Rep. Chris Shays has given an indication that he will pull no punches in his likely Republican Party primary with Linda McMahon.


Mr. Shays told Mr. Green that Mrs. McMahon’s record as a former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) will be an issue in his campaign.

"Her record and her conduct,” Mr. Shays said, “are an important part of the process. Everything that she's done is going to be an important part of the campaign. I'm not going to take punches. I'm not a Quaker."

Mr. Green writes that Mr. Shays “also promised to stick to his moderate Republican roots. ‘I'm not going to try to win the primary and lose the general election.’"

A possible battle between Mr. Shays and Mrs. McMahon is certain – provided Mr. Shays sticks to his script – to have a “déjà vu all over again” flavor to it, Mr. Shays serving as a double for former Rep. Rob Simmons, who lost to Mrs. McMahon in a Republican Primary and was rather peevish about his loss.

Both Mr. Simmons and Mr. Shays were “moderate” Republicans, each of whom lost to fairly moderate Democratic contenders. Mr. Shays had the distinction of being the last moderate Republican congressman in New England, the breed having died out with him.

Mr. Shays is not quite ready for a re-run. The former congressman left Connecticut for parts South after his loss and may have a little boning up to do on national issues before he takes a hammer to Mrs. McMahon’s likely run for office.

In the meantime, Mr. Shay’s Democratic opponents also will outfit themselves with brass knuckles. On the Democratic side, present U.S. Rep. Chris Murphy and former Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz will be struggling for an opportunity to meet the winner of the Republican Primary on the field of battle, and neither Democratic candidate is a Quaker.

Mr. Murphy, who defeated long term U.S. Rep Nancy Johnson, also regarded as a moderate Republican, is on his way to becoming a perpetual politician. His very first job in politics was as an intern to U.S. Senator Chris Dodd, now a Hollywood mogul; he managed Charlotte Koskoff’s near upset campaign against Mrs. Johnson, and also worked for a couple of years in the late 90’s for then State Senate Majority Leader George Jepsen, now Connecticut’s Attorney General. Mr. Murphy’s work record is unblemished by any connection with the real world economy. Mrs. Bysiewicz recent political background needs no introduction, beyond noting that comparisons have been made between her and Lady Macbeth. Neither of the two Democrats are inept in exploiting the logs in the eyes of their Republican opponents, and both would be delighted to see blood on the Republican Party primary floor.

Mr. Shays’ record in office is not without blemish. One may expect Democratic operatives to make much ado about Mr. Shays’ former felonious campaign manager, Michael Sohn, who absconded with more than $250,000 in money filched from Mr. Shays’ 2008 campaign against present Rep. Jim Himes, widely regarded as more moderate than, say, the tempestuous John Larson, a U.S. 1st District Rep who will be replaced by a Republican moments after Hell freezes over.

It is not precisely accurate to say that Mr. Sohn took money from Mr. Shays. The ten most generous donors in the 2008 campaign were individuals and PACs associated with large financial firms, and the money was stolen from them. Mr. Sohn may have been, at least in sprit, a larval Democrat in supposing that the ill-gotten gains of the super-rich were in some sense his due.

There is a delicate irony associated with Mr. Shays’ troubles that is not likely to be noticed by thuggish roustabouts in both the Republican and Democratic Parties who are interested in bruising Mrs. McMahon because of her unsavory association with wrestlers or Mr. Shays because of his fatal inattention to the felonious Mr. Sohn.

The Center for Competitive Politics (CCP), a group whose mission it is to promote and defend citizens' First Amendment political rights of speech, assembly, and petition, noting that Shays had for well over a decade “fought tirelessly to enact greater restrictions on campaign speech, finally succeeding with the passage of the Shays-Meehan (or "McCain-Feingold") bill in 2002,” observed, following Mr. Sohn’s arrest, “…it is ironic that the Shays campaign may now face added penalties from the Federal Election Commission. It seems a bit absurd, but that's how it works when campaigns are victims of embezzlement - the embezzler is usually someone with the ability to alter campaign finance reports in order to cover his tracks, so as a result the campaign files false reports with the FEC.”

Noting that corruption inheres in corrupt individuals, CCP wondered whether Mr. Shays ever would be forced to face “the cruelest moment of all - will Mr. Sohn's actions force Mr. Shays to realize that he spent much of his political career attempting to restrict the speech of his fellow private citizens, without accomplishing much of anything having to do with public corruption?”

It is a point not likely to be pressed by Mr. Shays’ possible Democratic opponents, some of whom look upon campaign finance reform as the holy grail of politics. But there are vigorous Constitutional proponents around every corner in the Republican Party barracks for whom Mr. Shays’ ardent support of McCain-Feingold – the campaign finance bill that was supposed to eliminate corruption – remains a red flag waved before a bull’s nose. And these folks, talking a page from Barry Goldwater’s adage that moderation in the pursuit of liberty may be a vice, are not Quakers.