The money game

The big bucks are flowing like a mighty river into the campaigns of presidential candidates. Public financing seems all but dead. (Reporting requirements are still valuable as they let us know where the money is coming from, more or less.) If you give $100 to candidate A and you do it in person at a small private dinner and all his other contributions are under $50 - then you can reasonably expect to be remembered. Money comes with strings.

This year, the political industry is spinning the money before it is spent, ordaining mega-fund-raising as the sine qua non of a credible candidacy. It is not the strength of character or power of ideas that matters in this race. It is the ability to beg.

This is a terrible system and Congress should repair the Campaign Financing law.