Steve Dunn uses his column in The Oregonian today to deliver a stern lecture to Democratic candidates in the state, and issue a strong call for public financing of elections as the first step to take to move all other work forward. Portland, Oregon has a public financing option available for municipal races -- perhaps this has helped galvanize support for a national push on this issue.Here's what Dunn and Jeff Golden, a former county commissioner and NPR host, have to say about public financing and making voters the focus of elections:Who's determined to restrain federal spending? Who's committed to confronting the cost of health care and the plight of the middle class? And who's willing to break the corporate control of the system by advocating for public campaign financing?"I can't get hopeful about our future unless we can get public financing started," Golden said. "Campaign contributors own the system. That means we need to be the campaign contributors as a public body. That's the linchpin. Pull that off and all sorts of things become possible."Golden adds later: Golden has a provocative premise: Voters are much smarter than the consultants who attempt to manipulate them and the candidates content to talk down to them. They are fed up with "slogans and dogma and knee-jerk ideologies." The candidate who talks to them like adults -- and convinces them public campaign financing, reduced military spending, and an end to local pork projects serve their self-interest -- won't connect with the corporate power brokers, the public employee unions or the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Just everyone else.Regardless of party affiliation, candidates who are able to run under a public financing system are freed to discuss issues that matter to their constituents, not just what matters to their biggest financial supporters -- and that goal enjoys bipartisan support in the Fair Elections Now Act before the Senate.