More than survive, parties thrive under new campaign finance rules.(FEATURE)

When the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) became law in 2002, predicting a decline in political parties' strength and volume of campaign activity seemed a no-brainer. Sure, the contribution limit for individual donors was raised. But gone would be the huge soft money donations that in 2000 provided 40 percent of federal party funding and two years later increased to 44 percent.

Even when early reports in 2004 indicated that a wave of new small donors had so far filled the void, the prevailing logic seemed to be that soft money would be missed the most during the la