Don't blame BCRA

Central to La Raja's grievances against the campaign finance reform of BCRA is that money was redirected from the known and monitored quantities of Political parties and into new, murky organizations called 527's:

In much the same way, BCRA spurs the institutionalization of electioneering
groups called 527 and 501(c) organizations, groups that will apparently remain a
permanent fixture on the campaign landscape. These groups have the advantage
of spending soft money in elections. Some 501(c) groups do not even have to
report donors. Since BCRA, outside election spending has increased as groups
gain experience. Politico quotes one Democratic operative saying, "Four years
ago and eight years ago, people were just dipping their toes in, because it was all
relatively new then. Now people understand the process, and it's much more
mainstream" (Vogel 2008).

The underlying assumption is that this is a "big deal" because these groups can tilt elections one way or the other. The most prominent example is the mother of all 527's, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. The fact, however, tell a different story. Opensecrets reports that in 9 out of 10 congressional races, as well as the presidency, the richer candidate won. This data does not include 527's, which are, of course, independent of the candidates own personal war chests:

In 93 percent of House of Representatives races and 94 percent of Senate races that had been decided by mid-day Nov. 5, the candidate who spent the most money ended up winning, according to a post-election analysis by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. The findings are based on candidates' spending through Oct. 15, as reported to the Federal Election Commission.

Continuing a trend seen election cycle after election cycle, the biggest spender was victorious in 397 of 426 decided House races and 30 of 32 settled Senate races. On Election Day 2006, top spenders won 94 percent of House races and 73 percent of Senate races. In 2004, 98 percent of House seats went to the biggest spender, as did 88 percent of Senate seats.

"The 2008 election will go down in U.S. history as an election of firsts, but this was far from the first time that money was overwhelmingly victorious on Election Day," Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, said. "The best-funded candidates won nine out of 10 contests, and all but a few members of Congress will be returning to Washington."

It seems from this data that 527's are inconsequential to the outcome of elections. Otherwise, the independent 527's should negate individual candidates war chests.

However, BCRA is not off the hook. The fact that incumbents have more money is a function of a second phenomenon that La Raja claims that BCRA has caused:

Congressional challengers are falling behind. Financial imbalances
within this presidential story do not appear to be party-based, favoring one party
consistently rather than the other. Nor do they appear to differentiate among
serious candidates in a regular way, year in and year out. The congressional story,
on the other hand, looks very different. While incumbents reliably raise more
money, challengers appear to fare additionally worse under BCRA.
Figure 1 shows that the financial gap has widened between officeholders and
challengers. Incumbent fundraising increased 20% between 2002 and 2006, while
challenger fundraising stayed flat during this same period. Incumbents simply
exploit their powerful positions to raise additional money from PACs and their
established networks of donors. Challengers, especially those in the 2nd tier of
competitive races, the ones that are typically ignored by their national parties, just cannot keep pace with incumbents.

The vast majority of congressional races where won by incumbents, perhaps accounting for the high figure of victory for those with more money (presumably the incumbents).

However, the evidence indicates that with or without BCRA, US congressional elections historically go to the incumbents.

It is also worth noting that name recognition is a natural reason that incumbents are favored, giving them an added advantage even if all else is equal.

Returning to the topic of 527's, perhaps La Raja is referring to the dangers of 527's in Presidential politics, ala the swifties. Here to, however, the evidence is clear. The man who raised more money is the President elect. And his personal campaign war chest can take much credit (see: Commercial, nationally televised).