SARBOX (or SOX) a Campaign Issue?

The WSJ's Political Diary reported that Guiliani was in Australia and said that he hasn't decided to run for the Presidency in 2008. Sure. Then though, the non-candidate decided to, ya' know, spitball about some issues and said he opposed Sarbanes-Oxley. Huh? Why would America's Mayor, the Prince of the City etc., whose stock is actually rising along with the waters of Lake Pontchartrain in New Orleans as political leadership failures abound across the Bayou State, invoke this obscure and incredibly boring recent addition to our securities regulatory regime? Well, to signal to some very large (and small ones too) money trees to prepare to be shaken, of course. Most might see this as unseemly - that ghastly money in our politics - and certainly the MSM will take the 'sop to big business' route (although they would be wrong, because large companies like the kind of burden that is more burdensome on their smaller, nimbler rivals than on themselves, but that hasn't stopped them before), but this is smart on Rudy's part and a good development. Sarbox is a disaster and should be repealed and the mere idea of it will get the campaign cash flowing into Rudy's 2008 coffers. Mike Oxley is about the only person left who thinks this legislation is a good idea and the best arguement for it that anybody is making is that it will be less needlessly burdensome in the near future because companies have gotten used to and made allowances for the majority of the needless burdens already. (So, like the tax code, it is a mess, but hey, we're all used to it, so why change it. ) Sarbox is hurting small to mid-sized companies that are, broadly-speaking, the most dynamic and innovative in the publicly-traded universe and there are numerous examples of companies that are choosing to forgo regulatory compliance altogether by delisting rather than cough up the one or two million bones to be kosher ala Sarbox. Funny that, a law designed to increase transparency for investors is doing just the opposite, and our capital markets suffer as small companies redo the cost/benefit calculus of being public. So, large swaths of the business community would love to see Sarbox go the way of the Dodo and I'm willing to bet they would even write checks to a candidate who raised the issue prominently. In politics early money is the best kind of money and Rudy could put his campaign in great shape with an early tour through the business community pounding away on this silly law. And he'll need it to suvive McCain in the primaries. Regardless of the messenger, we can only hope that the message spreads to more of our intrepid leaders - repeal Sarbox.