Jay Mandle, of Democracy Matters and Colgate University writes in Newsday today about the increasing dominance of wealthy contributors in elections depressing civic engagement: "Americans don't trust their government or political system. Cynicism about the motives and interests of our politicians is so deep that voters find themselves in an immobilizing contradiction."

He goes to address the distrust many American voters have for globalization and free trade policies and how that distrust is tied to policy that doesn't go far enough to address the average voter's concerns about these policies.

But it's not free trade per se that Americans object to so much as the absence of government policies to deal with its negative effects, like job losses. When polls link liberalization of trade with mitigating policies other developed countries have, such as "programs to help workers who lose their jobs," two-thirds of Americans surveyed are in favor of it. These results are consistent with the more general pattern of support for policies to offset market-driven economic inequality, a pattern that consistently shows up in opinion surveys.


So why doesn't that support translate into political activism, legislative agendas or serious primary debate?


It's because constructing viable egalitarian politics in the United States awaits reform of the campaign finance system - the basic message of Edwards' ad. Among comparably developed countries, we are alone in how we pay for our political campaigns: All the others provide significant public funds for political parties and candidates for national legislatures, and many provide free media access, too.

Mandle goes on to describe the Fair Elections Now Act introduced in the Senate to create a full public financing system for congressional campaigns: the first step towards turning back the tide of big money in politics.

On another note: Mandle begins his article noting presidential candidate John Edwards' recent ad on the ties between campaign contributions and government policy, and claiming that despite it Edwards' is still running with private money. Though Edwards still collects private donations he was among the first candidates to opt in to the presidential public financing program, which matches small-dollar contributions and is intended to balance the influence of big donors. Edwards, and the other candidates in the race, are working in an imperfect system wherein they must choose between using the underfunded, out-of-date public financing program or staying in the private financing rat race. The answer is to update the presidential public financing program so candidates who want to sever the ties between private money and policy can align their politics and their principles. A bill was recently introduced to make such updates.