The advantage to party leaders is it gives them a way to enforce discipline in the House and the Senate that leaders in the past didn't have.
As long as people are raising private money in big numbers to finance expensive campaigns, you're going to have big contributors who have special interests controlling the outcome, whether it's video poker or the hog farmers or tobacco companies or the trial lawyers.
These are the kinds of issues that whip up people in primary elections. The turnout is going to be really low, so I think these candidates are looking for something that whips up the faithful and increases the turnout for them.
It puts them in a very precarious position. They know when they take the pledge that it's not in the public's interest.
