Campaign Financing: Has Money Taken Over Politics?

TW: George Will in this column does two things: 1) excoriates the Palin pick (a topic that we have more than covered on this blog and will therefore exclude from the post despite its obvious validity) and 2) explores campaign financing. Will has been strong opponent of campaign finance reform and/or limitations. I have been torn in my perspectives. Intuitively one would hope that no one could "buy" their way to office on the other hand the McCain-Feingold laws have proved utterly feckless. At this point I see no route to relevant regulation beyond insisting on maximum transparency on the part of campaign funding sources.

From Will via WaPo:
"Why is it virtuous to erect a dam of laws to impede the flow of contributions by which citizens exercise their First Amendment right to political expression?...One excellent result of this election cycle is that public financing of presidential campaigns now seems sillier than ever.

The Post, which is melancholy about the system's parlous condition, says there were three reasons for creating public financing: to free candidates from the demands of fundraising, to level the playing field and "to limit the amount of money pouring into presidential campaigns." The first reason is decreasingly persuasive because fundraising is increasingly easy because of new technologies such as the Internet. The second reason is, the Supreme Court says, constitutionally impermissible. Government may not mandate equality of resources among political competitors who earn different levels of voluntary support. As for the third reason -- "huge amounts" (McCain) of money "pouring into" (The Post) presidential politics -- well:
The Center for Responsive Politics calculates that, by Election Day, $2.4 billion will have been spent on presidential campaigns in the two-year election cycle that began in January 2007, and an additional $2.9 billion will have been spent on 435 House and 35 Senate contests. This $5.3 billion is a billion less than Americans will spend this year on potato chips."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/29/AR2008102903199.html