Public Campaign Financing
Francis Wilkinson is smart:
Bring It On: Ever since Watergate, the ideal of campaign finance reform has been to replace a system fueled by special interests and big money with either full public financing or a system of civic-minded small donors. The former is abhorred by much of the public while the latter looks remarkably like barackobama.com. In effect, the Obama campaign has come closer to achieving the ideals of campaign finance reform than 30-plus years of regulation. To condemn the campaign’s departure from the system is to elevate rules over the principle that gave birth to the rules in the first place.
If reformers make Mr. Obama out to be the bad guy, that may be fine by him. Despite what we have witnessed with our own eyes, some people remain under the illusion that Mr. Obama is soft. (Apparently they missed the part where, two years into his first term in the Senate, he ran for president against the most powerful political machine in America and steadily ground it down.) Mr. Obama’s willingness to snub reformers isn’t exactly akin to taming a lion or wrestling an alligator. But more than four months before the election, even beating up on a toothless bunny might send a message.