Wayne Goodwin writes in the Carrboro Citizen in support of North Carolina's efforts to create a full public financing pilot program for three of their Council of State offices, freeing these officials from the money chase and from taking large sums of money from interests with whom their office may deal directly. As a former legislator and current commissioner he knows the reality of campaigning and writes about the conflicts it produces. Here's an extended quote on his own experience of spending hour upon hour glued to the phone and courting wealthy contributors;In my own 2004 race, like other candidates, I had to lock myself in a cubicle — a campaign “war room” — and spend up to 12 hours daily, six days weekly, on the phone for between six and 12 months, raising campaign funds.Frankly, asking people you know, and those you don’t know, to each donate thousands of dollars is distasteful … but a necessary evil. Asking someone to donate to a charitable cause or a church or a scholarship program is one thing, but making 200 calls daily for your personal campaign’s benefit decimates what a candidate should be doing — spending time with voters.To accumulate the amount of cash most campaigns are told they need these days, they choose to focus more often on donors of larger sums.It should also be no surprise that many persons who donate to Council of State offices are often persons directly or indirectly regulated by those very offices, a situation which is potentially fraught with all sorts of problems. Big donors sometimes use their influence to seek tax breaks, weak regulations or favors that cost the taxpayers millions of dollars. Really says it all. Goodwin helped create the judicial public financing program that North Carolina pioneered and which has proved popular and successful. It's time to expand the opportunity to run free of the influence of campaign cash to Council of State candidates.