Even in his triumphant moment, however, Thompson cautioned that "there are still hurdles. We're in about the eighth inning now ... I'm not underestimating what might be done."

Thompson was alluding to an anticipated amendment on "non-severability," which would make the bill one whole so that if any part of it were to be thrown out by the U.S. Supreme Court, the entire bill would be tossed.

With additions of constitutionally questionable amendments by Wellstone Monday, and Schumer Wednesday, McCain-Feingold strategists consider a "yea" vote on "non-severability" to be "setting a trap" for the bill, as Feingold put it Tuesday. This is the fort where sneaky Democrats who want to kill the bill -- but don't want to take the blame for killing it -- are now hiding.

A lobbyist for Common Cause reports that he anticipates possible "yea" votes on non-severability from Democratic Sens. Wellstone, Murray, Dick Durbin of Illinois, Tom Harkin of Iowa, Maria Cantwell of Washington, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, John Breaux of Louisiana and Robert "The Torch" Torricelli of New Jersey.

On Wednesday evening, McCain's "Straight Talk America" PAC sent out an e-mail to its list of roughly 200,000 McCainiacs, urging defeat of the non-severability amendment, which, the e-mail said, "is aimed squarely at defeating the soft money ban. The strategy of CFR opponents is to pass amendments of questionable constitutionality and simultaneously vote for the non-severability amendment that would cancel out any attempts at true reform. A vote for the non-severability amendment is a vote to kill campaign finance reform, plain and simple."

McCain's PAC added a few names to the list of suspected wobbly Democrats, urging voters to call several of the names above as well as a few others: Democratic Sens. Max Baucus of Montana, Evan Bayh of Indiana, Joe Biden of Delaware, Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, Kent Conrad of North Dakota, Mark Dayton of Minnesota, Tim Johnson of South Dakota, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, Jack Reed of Rhode Island and Debbie Stabenow of Michigan. Interestingly, neither Breaux nor Murray made the McCain list, since both are perceived to be completely off the program.

"For those people who want McCain-Feingold, there is only one vote," Feinstein said at Wednesday's press conference, cautioning her colleagues.

Though Democratic leader Daschle has preached support for campaign finance reform and a soft-money ban in the past, he has not been particularly active in rounding up votes on this debate, when it counts. So after his amendment sailed through, I asked Thompson if he thinks Daschle really wants this bill to pass.

"I don't want to second-guess him," Thompson drawled. "I don't want to do anything at this stage of this game to unduly irritate my colleagues, and I hope they treat me the same way."

"He has a legitimate interest to look out for his party, just as Sen. Lott does," Thompson said of the Democratic leader. "And I appreciate that. And it's a complex deal trying to figure out whether or not you're giving away the store ... So they've got to be a little uptight about all this ... I think he's going to be there in the end."

We'll see. After all, Thompson -- while playing Adm. Josh Painter in the 1990 Alec Baldwin vehicle "The Hunt for Red October" -- knew that the unexpected, and uncontrollable, can end it all. "This business will get out of control," Thompson said in that film. "It will get out of control and we'll be lucky to live through it." So lucky, too, will be the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill of 2001.

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