Political $$$

[DocDiggs]

Editorial
The Candidates' Money Race

As a cash-flow marathon, the 2008 presidential race is already under way, with fund-raising trumping innovative ideas and political experts predicting the death of public financing. This is a little-noticed American tragedy, as politics slips back toward the Watergate era. That was when the scandal of easy-money corruption prompted Congress to create the historic option of public election subsidies.

That worthy reform is now badly in need of updating to keep pace with the big-money dynamics of private fund-raising, which has retightened its lock on politics. Don't expect much help from the current Congress, so clearly in thrall to special interests' campaign money. In the last presidential contest, President Bush and Senator John Kerry set furious records for private fund-raising — netting more than $250 million each — for the campaign primaries. Intent on dominating the political landscape, they rejected the public alternative, which would have limited spending to a mere $44 million each. But they both took the subsidies for the general election, each accepting a $74 million spending limit.

Even that path is now threatened as political consultants sense a billion-dollar duel looming for the next election. The cost of running for the White House inflates with each ballot, and campaign strategists estimate that the entry stakes for the 2008 race could approach $100 million, just to be taken seriously. No wonder aspirants are already trolling California, Texas and other wholesale donor precincts as hungrily as the retail voter tableaus of Iowa and New Hampshire.


http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/23/op...gewanted=print