Long live public financing

There's been lots of talk about what will happen to public financing after the election is over. We're confident that Congress will work to fix the presidential system and also move a public financing system for Congressional races forward, and so is Nancy Watzman, former Public Campaign staffer and blogger at the Denver Post. Watzman cites the billions of dollars spent this election season and recent polling that show voters are tired of the way Washington works. Obama's had success with small donors and this is similar to the successful Clean Elections systems already in place in states across the country: Full public financing systems that are working in the states should serve as the model. Arizona and Maine have had such systems in place since 2000. And in Connecticut this year, 75 percent of the candidates have chosen to participate in the state's fledgling full public financing system.   Of course, there are a lot of Washington insiders that'd like this idea of "campaign finance reform," to just go away, but that's not going to happen.  There will be plenty of pressure from political insiders in both parties to do nothing. But there also happens to be plenty going on right now--can you say financial meltdown and mega-government bailouts?--that will continue to illustrate the problem of the too cozy relationship between big donors and policy making. There's a reason both Obama and McCain are both campaigning on the buzz word "change"--the public really wants it. And changing the system of money and politics is part of that.