Presidential campaigns closed their third quarter of fundraising yesterday and their results are trickling out.  We heard Thursday that John Edwards opted for public financing and spending limits for the primary campaign,which actually gives him more money to spend right away, while also highlighting the tremendous clout that wealthy campaign contributors wield in the election process.  Now we're hearing from other campaigns.

One is Mitt Romney's, which has raised a total of nearly $40 million.  Oh, wait, that's $55 million, because he's generously given himself about $15 million over the course of the race.  I don't begrudge Mitt his millions, but to me there's something fundamentally wrong about a candidate for our highest public office using his personal wealth to gain a big advantage over his rivals.  You know who agrees with me?  Mitt Romney (in January):

This isn't confined to Romney.  John Kerry did the same thing--to a lesser degree--in 2004, when he loaned himself $6 million before Iowa.  You may remember that he won the Iowa caucuses that year.  For both of these guys, the "nightmare" isn't being "forced" to contribute to their own campaigns; the nightmare would be to have no vast fortune with which to contribute.

It's a shame that our system allows those with big money, especially when they're running in the race, to gain an advantage over their less wealthy competitors simply by virtue of their own personal fortune.  It has little to do with ideas or with ability as a future president.  It's just money.  But it buys a lot in campaigns for national office.

Our answer is simple: give candidates the ability to earn public money to run a viable, competitive campaign.  The first step will be to pass into law the Durbin-Specter Fair Elections Now Act, which would cover Congressional campaigns, and then to fix the outdated presidential public financing system before 2012.