Translation-Dempsey wants to run for higher office

The Columbia Tribune's Politics Blog had an interesting story yesterday regarding Sen. Tom Dempsey, R-St. Charles. Dempsey voted for the 2006 bill which eliminated campaign finance limits but he voted against the 2008 bill to do away with the limits. Jason Rosenbaum, of the Tribune, asked Dempsey to explain his vote. Here is what Dempsey had to say along with some comments from Rosenbaum;

• “The bill that I filed didn’t have elimination of limits in it,” Dempsey said. “It did have a component that if you look in the bill that’s filed that raised the limit and eliminated the ten times the limit on the party committees. There was a campaign finance piece. We took that out and sent it over to the Senate side. But the primary drive behind the bill in 2006 for me was elimination of the caucus system that had been abused for decades.”
  Dempsey is referring to a loophole in the lobbyist disclosure process that allowed gifts to be attributed to members of ‘caucuses’ instead of individuals. That prevented disclosure of hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of meals and entertainment from Missouri Ethics Commission reports.
  Nevertheless, Dempsey still ultimately voted to pass that 2006 version of the bill. I asked him what made him change his position for this year’s legislation.
  “As I consider what the priorities for the state should be, I frankly didn’t think this was a priority for me. It’s not in my top ten, it’s not in my top twenty,” Dempsey said. “We have a flawed system to do this. While I understand it and agree with it in principle, you’re still going to have negative campaigning. You’re still going to have huge sums of money raised. You’re replacing one flawed system with another somewhat more transparent, but also flawed. For me it wasn’t a priority. And from a timing standpoint with the campaigns this year, it just didn’t think it was something that we should be considering.”

Translating this from "politico speak" into English, I think what Dempsey is saying is that he plans to run for higher office someday and doesn't want a vote to eliminate campaign finance limits to be used against him although he really agrees with doing away with the limits.