What people fail to appreciate is that the currency of corruption in elective office is, not money, but votes.

What people fail to appreciate is that the currency of corruption in elective office is, not money, but votes.

They may then be willing to cast principled votes based on an educated understanding of the public interest in the face of polls suggesting that the public itself may have quite a different understanding of where its interest lies.

In rendering its decision in our case, the Supreme Court equated money with speech because these days it takes the first to make yourself heard.

Unfortunately, the media, which are not at all reluctant to act in their own self-interest, have succeeded in equating reform in the public mind with further restrictions on just about everyone else's freedom of political speech.

Given the difficulty of resisting such temptations over the longer run, a proper concern for the welfare of congressional souls may well be the ultimate argument in favor of term limitations.

What distinguishes the campaign finance issue from just about every other one being debated these days is that the two sides do not divide along conventional liberal/ conservative lines.