The McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill, anticipated to pass Monday, will ban unlimited, unregulated gifts of campaign cash known as "soft money" to the Republican and Democratic parties. The bill will also ban all "issue" TV and radio ads against candidates funded by labor or corporate dollars within 30 days of a primary and 60 days of an election. Should it ultimately become law, the bill would arguably be the most sweeping campaign reform since the post-Watergate era more than a quarter-century ago.

While Republicans wanted to call for a final vote Thursday evening, Democrats insisted on a few odd amendments. Late into the evening Thursday, an agreement was worked out in which debate could proceed all night, and some votes on amendments were scheduled for Friday. Regardless, with the defeat of the last controversial amendment, the McCain-Feingold bill looked like a fait accompli.

It has been a hard-fought battle, with all sorts of sniping from both the left and the right. Because the Democratic Party had achieved parity with the Republicans last year in raising soft money -- and has never been close to the GOP on regulated, limited "hard" dollars -- many Democrats started peeling from the fold.

"In the course of the last two weeks, I have had more conversations with partisan Democrats than in the last two decades," said Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the leading opponent of the McCain-Feingold bill. "There's been a sense of panic. There's been a sense of foreboding. They've asked me, 'Are you going to be able to kill this thing?'"

The first Democrat to publicly defect was Sen. John Breaux of Louisiana, who despite having voted for a soft-money ban five times before, suddenly didn't find the measure palatable. Breaux joined with McCain's friend and fellow Vietnam veteran, Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., in offering a bill that capped soft-money contributions to parties at $60,000 per individual per election cycle per party. This bill, however, tacitly supported by President Bush, never gained enough support to pose a serious threat to McCain-Feingold.

Keeping the bipartisan coalition together to craft a bill that could earn the support of a majority of the Senate proved tough. Conservatives like Sens. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Jesse Helms, R-N.C., offered a "paycheck protection" amendment that would have offended labor unions and Democrats. Liberals like Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., offered amendments in support of the public financing of elections, which would have caused the seven other Republicans on the McCain-Feingold crew -- Sens. Fred Thompson of Tennessee, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, Jim Jeffords of Vermont, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and Thad Cochran of Mississippi -- to defect.

While McCain, Feingold and others on the reform team -- the Republicans mentioned above as well as Democrats Carl Levin of Michigan, Dianne Feinstein of California and Chuck Schumer of New York -- worked hard to negotiate the difficult terrain, Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., tried to manage his caucus, as well as his own doubts about the bill.

Daschle came to the table supporting campaign finance reform in principle, but had problems with some of the amendments added to the bill. McCain-Feingold advocates saw Daschle as wobbly and occasionally unsupportive. One lobbyist in favor of the bill who spoke with Daschle was left with the impression that Daschle wanted it to pass in theory, but had staffers and key Democratic senators in his caucus who had a deep and real fear that the bill would hurt Democrats more than Republicans. Other senior Democratic staffers confirmed this as well.

But Daschle spokeswoman Ranit Schmelzer argued that her boss "has been an advocate of campaign finance reform since he's been here."

"He worked tirelessly for it this week," Schmelzer said. "He's the reason there was such a strong vote on increasing hard-money limits," which was a major hurdle cleared on Wednesday. That day, Thompson and Feinstein hashed out a compromise on increasing "hard-money" limits on contributions to candidates (limits that hadn't been increased since the post-Watergate reforms), a move that many Democrats oppose.

Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., said that he and many other Democrats voted for the hard-money increase just to move the process forward. Referring to a provision offered by Sens. Snowe and Jeffords that bans certain types of third-party advertising around election time, Dodd said, "Snowe-Jeffords ... and the ban on soft money are the only two reforms in this bill. Thompson-Feinstein is the price you paid for those reforms."

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