Monday’s Democratic debate proved that if there is one issue on which all parties may agree, it is that $170,000 is the right salary for a United States Congressman.  The current Congress, which has failed to end the war, raise environmental standards, put a dent in our national debt, reform health care and education or even campaigns, has managed to pick but just the right number when it comes to their compensation.  After a taxing three-day work week, they seem to say, hey, I’m worth it.

The question that makes most candidates uncomfortable is about campaign accounts—the amounts of money, and from whom it is raised.  Answers require a certain moral and linguistic flexibility that only members of the legal profession possess.  One well self-financed candidate who lives in the district claimed the most donations from people within the district.  Another received nearly a million dollars from family and friends and those who bagged groceries with him as a kid.  One knew nothing of what groups her campaign would not take money from—that being an absurd notion—only the organizations from which it did raise money, and anyway individuals can almost donate as much as lobbyists.  Another has essentially refused to take money from organizations that would not give it.  The last candidate, usually blunt and unequivocal in his remarks, was unsure of whether he had taken money from utility companies, and may have gone home that night to an unlit house and a cold stove.

He’d steal a red-hot stove, my grandfather George B. Murphy used to say of various public officials.  Himself an honest politician, he made headlines at the Lowell Sun when he exposed someone who had attempted to bribe him for a vote.  That sort of bribery has now been legalized.  Our Supreme Court in Buckley v. Valeo ruled that money was a form of political speech and the lobbyists haven’t stopped talking since: through political action committees (PACs), groups of donors, or through the more traditional bag of unmarked political speech hidden in the freezer.

Some candidates conceded this was a problem. One suggested a system of public financing, but this fails to control the ridiculous costs of campaigns. Another suggested equal TV time might give candidates outside the establishment a fairer platform.  These are nice sentiments, but by continuing to participate in such a flawed system, candidates who raise so much money, who believe they are entitled to so much more than the average worker, only ensure that the unholy trinity of wealthy corporations, media conglomerates and the political class continues to operate, as they have, in their own interests.

The only way to effect campaign reform is to reform how we run them now.  If we wait until we step onto the House floor, it is too late.