The election had come and gone, and no one was blaming Mr. Strauss for George McGovern's decisive loss to Richard Nixon. But already the question was, How would the next presidential campaign be financed? "A new law was passed a year ago ...," WFB begins, "but the law is itself the subject of criticism as a bureaucratic nightmare and as a measure of quite dubious constitutionality." A lively discussion of both the theory and the recent history of campaign finance, with Mr. Strauss floating an idea that nearly thirty years later began to find favor with people on both sides of the fence: "One of the great weaknesses we've had, one of the great faults we've had, one of the things that's made people think it's sinister or evil, has been secrecy. And I think bringing it out in the open and opening the doors and windows and letting people see who's giving and to whom they are giving begins to get at the heart of the problem."