“The [James Madison Center for Free Speech]‘s sole goal was to end all legal restrictions on money in politics. Its honorary chairman was Senator Mitch McConnell, a savvy and prodigious fund-raiser.

”Conservatives cast their opposition to campaign-finance restrictions as a principled defense of free speech, but McConnell, who was one of the cause’s biggest champions, had occasionally revealed a more partisan motive. As a Republican running for office in Kentucky in the 1970s, when it was almost solidly Democratic, he once admitted 'a spending edge is the only thing that gives a Republican a chance to compete.' He had once opened a college class by writing on the blackboard the three ingredients that he felt were necessary to build a political party: ‘Money, money, money.’ In a Senate debate on proposed campaign-finance restrictions, McConnell reportedly told colleagues, ‘If we stop this thing, we can control the institution for the next twenty years.’

— from “Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right,” by Jane Mayer

Money, money, money.