To be fair, McCain's top finance guy was Phil Gramm, the author of the bill, and Democratic President Bill Clinton signed it into law.

Both sides of the aisle became convinced that less regulation was always a good thing. It was a mass hysteria.

Is this the same bill as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity_Futures_Modernization... ?

Interesting followup by the NYT on Phil Gramm and his policies that led us to crisis: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/17/business/economy/17gramm.h...