Smith also wrote "Unfree Speech: The Folly of Campaign Finance Reform", a book published by the Princeton University Press in 2001. By the time "Unfree Speech" was published, both Smith and his campaign finance scholarship had become something of a Rorschach test for attitudes about campaign finance. The book met with near universal praise among opponents of regulation, such as columnist George Will, who called it "the Year's most important book on governance," and condemnation from supporters of regulation, with journalist Eliza Newlin Carney lambasting it as "facile and boggling." Scholars, including the British political scientist Michael Pinto-Duschinsky were more balanced and generally complimentary.