The institutional press—some call it the mainstream media—rally around few reforms with the tenacity with which it defends the Presidential public financing system.  Its woes have been described as a "little-noticed American tragedy," which have degraded Presidential selection to a "money primary" to be followed, inevitably, by a "money general."  Candidates have "opted out" of the system with literal (political) impunity, and as this becomes the fashion, pursued without political cost, few serious candidates can gamble their futures on choosing public money along with the spending limits its acceptance entails.  And, here, the "horse race" and editorial press take up arms against each other, with the handicappers increasingly judging the "seriousness" of candidates by their ability to decline public money and raise all of their own.

       John Kerry recently gave the public financing system an additional kick while it was down, suggesting that the choice of public funding in the general election was one of the mistakes he made with material effect on the unhappy outcome.  "Kerry:  Taking Federal Money a Mistake," New York Times (Apr. 9, 2006). 

      Other prospective candidates will take notice.  And so, too, will defenders of the system, who will question his diagnosis and renew the call for a reformed system.  Rick Hasen reports Kerry’s comment as "further evidence that the system is in deep trouble, and is likely to fall into disuse in 2008 unless Congress fixes it."

       In what way is it a "system" in need of repair?  It is assumed by defenders of the system that because candidates turn away from it, it must be "broken"; and if it is "broken," it should be put back together, not discarded altogether.  To be sure, there are remedies available for inspection.  These include one proposed by former FEC Commissioner Scott Thomas and the current Chair Michael Toner, and another, similar in some details, ably advanced by the Campaign Finance Institute and its Executive Director, Michael Malbin.   Built around more money, to be provided earlier in the primary reason, and with more rewards for small donations, these remedies may help, or they may not; but whether they are considered a "fix" to a system in need of it is the question still to be answered.  In other words, what is the "American tragedy" if the public financing fails?

      To date, CFI’s Mr. Malbin has presented the most thorough analysis of the roots of the "system’s" decline and the reason for regretting and seeking to arrest it.  Michael J. Malbin, "A Public Funding System in Jeopardy:  Lessons from the Presidential Nomination Contest of 2004," 5 Election L.J. 2 (2006).  He is convinced that without the public funding alternative, the public will lack for a richer supply of "serious" candidates unable to run without assistance.  He gives diverse examples, ranging from John McCain to Pat Buchanan.  Encouraging good potential Presidents is one objective.  "Competition" is another:  speaking of the 2004 experience, Profesor Malbin writes that "without some kind of public financing system, Senator Kerry would have faced no serious competition at all," since "none of the other [candidates] would have been competitive without matching funds."  Malbin at 2.  

      Malbin does not stress other, regulatory benefits of public financing, such as the protections against corrupt money, or relief from private fundraising and its distractions.  The system is defended as better overall for Presidential selection:  better in inviting the candidacies of the "serious," better also in fostering competition among them.  The 2004 experience does not bear this out, really.  Candidates, even ones starting out with little money or prospects, seem less inclined to accept public money once they became "serious."  Howard Dean stands for this proposition.  And Dean presents a further problem for claims made about a "broken system":  his ability, as a "long-shot," to raise a fully competitive level of funding without a dollar of public funding or any money of his own.  Malbin glosses over the significance of Dean’s financial competitiveness, attributing it to "the intensity of feeling about the war" (id. at 12) and somewhat pigeon-holing him as a "factional candidate" (id. at 19).

       Dean, however, had something to say, and he built his audience with it, dollar by dollar, making aggressive use of message allied with inexpensive technology.  In the aftermath of his candidacy, it is unclear why "serious candidacies" depend on public subsidies.  For one thing, these subsidies do not bear a clear or direct relationship to serious candidacies.  Some will not agree that Buchanan, for example, was a "serious" candidate.  In other cases, the judgment of whether a candidate is serious is post hoc:  the candidate leaves the stage with a bit of a glow, if only because we tend to tip our hat to the fallen warrior, inclined in the wake of defeat to credit their "seriousness." 

      Malbin is correct that these subsidies do contribute to competition, but this goal, now popular with the larger reform community, sounds better than it is.  A competitive primary is not always a boon to the party experiencing it, and in any event, it is often represented by nothing more than debates crowded to pointlessness by marginal candidates, barely kept alive by matching funds, who starve the others of airtime for "serious" debate.  The crowded field also feeds the demand—and within the press, the compulsion to produce—"horse race coverage."  What holds public and press interest is the "winnowing" of the field, which is too large to be begin with, mostly because of the availability of public funds.

      The public financing system is wrongly described as "outdated."  Id. at 2.  It suits the peculiarities of the front-loaded primary system, since it allows candidates to gamble a little public money on a large return in the form of post-Iowa and New Hampshire "momentum" (and the fundraising that goes with it).  This is an irrational process, for all the talk about the quaint virtues of retail politics, inseparable from the public funding "system" now in place.  To the extent that the one has fallen, to some degree, in disrepute, the other should fall with it. 

      It will remain attractive to many to have some form of subsidy available, on some reasonable basis, to sustain candidacies not fully viable without it.  And so there is no harm in trying to come with it, so long as it is not believed to be a grand renovation of any durable reform architecture.  Any such subsidy should be stingy, and the candidates should have to establish eligibility under the most stringent criteria, so that few make the grade.  Moreover, it should not require participating candidates to subscribe to any spending limit—state by state, or in the aggregate.  It should be a simple system, modest in its goals and, most critically, in its expectations.  No candidate, like John Kerry, should have to take the money with any chance that, looking back later, he or she will regret having done so.

Bob Bauer