WASHINGTON -- Gov. George W. Bush mischaracterized the campaign finance laws he's proposing to change, suggesting in Tuesday's GOP debate that individual donors are already barred from giving huge sums to politics.

The Texas governor was defending his proposal to ban soft money contributions to political parties from corporations and unions -- but not from individuals.

When presidential rival Sen. John McCain complained that a businessman could write a $1 million check under the plan, Bush protested. "John, there's a thousand-dollar limit," he said to the Arizona senator.

But the $1,000 limit to which Bush referred applies to individual giving to specific candidates. Individuals can give $20,000 a year to a party to be spent directly on candidates and unlimited amounts of money to parties for generic activities like getting out the vote.

Those unlimited sums are known as soft money, an area of giving that McCain is proposing to get rid of entirely.

With campaign finance reform as his signature issue, McCain knows the rules. But even he went off base when he set up his challenge of Bush's plan by saying that an individual, Bernard Schwartz, "gave $1 million individually to the Clinton-Gore campaign in 1996."

Schwartz gave about $650,000 in federal political contributions in the 1996 re-election campaign, most of it to Democrats, according to Federal Election Commission records. He gave $1,000 to the Clinton-Gore campaign.