A soft-money ban should apply equally to both campaigns.

Shrinking the bill to a simple soft-money ban for parties has paid off.

Any campaign finance reform must "extend the soft-money ban to ads sponsored by independent groups," as you say.

Neither party wasted any time looking for ways to get around the soft-money ban.

But only 53 senators voted to cut off a filibuster against the soft-money ban, about the same as last year.

The soft-money ban had left Democratic fund-raisers particularly worried about their ability to succeed in elections next year.

We are even more confident today that the court will uphold a soft-money ban.

Along with the soft-money ban, the Senate had raised the "hard money" limit from $1,000 to $2,000 per election on individual contributions to candidates.

But both candidates should adopt a soft-money ban on principle.

That is an increase from the current $25,000, a reasonable step in light of the soft-money ban on open-ended donations to parties.