ABSTRACT
The financing of American presidential elections has become more expensive and more complex for the two centuries that chief executives have been selected. During the nineteenth century, paying for a presidential campaign was a matter that could be handled with modest amounts of cash. Party leaders purchased newspapers, subsidized the production of campaign literature, and sometimes paid for speakers. By the twentieth century, the cost of advertising for radio and television drove up expenditures to hundreds of millions of dollars. In the process, corrupt practices, foreign donors, and illegal contributions polluted elections. As the twenty-first century began, calls for reform of the system grew louder, and in 2002 Congress passed the McCain–Feingold Act that limited soft-money contributions to presidential campaigns.
