
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, July 17, 1995                   TAG: 9507180006
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

CAMPAIGN FINANCE

STOP ME before I beg again, President Clinton told Democratic National Committee officials, and so last week they recalled the committee's catalog of favors for funds.

No longer will $100,000 buy a campaign contributor - at least not up front and in writing - two meals with Clinton, two meals with Vice President Al Gore, a spot on a foreign-trade mission and other considerations. No longer will $50,000 automatically get you a presidential reception, dinner with Gore and special policy briefings.

We cannot, alas, claim that our July 11 editorial "Peddling the Presidency" did the trick. For one thing, a lot of other folks also got in on the lambasting. More to the point, nothing much has really changed.

The catalog recall softens the sheer gall of the effort - but in the last analysis, merely returns a thin layer of camouflage to the underlying outrage: a demeaning, corrupting campaign-finance system that candidate Clinton promised to reform but that President Clinton has made a low priority.

Arguing that the Democrats cannot afford to disarm unilaterally, DNC officials remain intent on the search for fat-cat donors, a search in which promises of "access" are understood even when not so blatantly marketed. Instead of a brothel, we have an escort service.

True, the evils of the current system of campaign financing for president and for Congress - where, although the stakes in any one race are smaller, the system on the whole is even worse - do not observe partisan lines. The catalog was a clumsy attempt by the DNC to take to an even crasser level a fund-raising technique perfected by the Republican Party of Presidents Reagan and Bush. In both parties, the unofficial auction of perks goes back at least to the first time an ambassadorship went to the highest campaign-contribution bidder. The widespread sale of access and influence to moneyed interests is even more corrupting.

But nothing says the system must endure forever. It stays in place only because those who benefit from the prostitution refuse to resist it. When a candidate like Clinton is elected who promises to reform campaign financing, he at least ought to try.

by CNB