BenK --

If we used a pure public money system, like they have in the UK, the restrictions could work. We have tried to move that way repeatedly -- McCain-Feingold is one such attempt -- but, as the Supreme Court observed in upholding McCain-Feingold, money will find a way. Obama's support for public funding is like his support for single-payor healthcare -- it is a good principle and a good ideal, but we need to get real in the here-and-now and do what is practical because the ideal won't work.

That said, the real problem in the past has been that people of real wealth, like T-Boone Pickens, have been able to dump money into elections through 527s and have used that money to distract, confuse and mislead the voters into supporting candidates who favor the interests of the wealthy class (the top 2-3%) over the rest of us. Internet fundraising has evened this playing field a lot; it is evened it far more than public funding ever did.

The wonderful part of internet fundraising is that it allows the rest of us to contribute small amounts that, in combination, equal the large amounts available from the wealthiest among us. Now, it is true that the wealthiest still have more spending power -- but if they have to commit the old-money sin of spending principal to match the contributions of us little people, I would count that a serious victory.

Public funding both insulates and empowers wealth. Internet funding removes this protection -- and I say, thank God and pass the ammunition. The say of T-Boone Pickens's politics are numbered.

Beathan