It's indicative of the state of our political process that when two prominent candidates leave the Presidential race--Edwards and Giuliani this week--one of the top priorities for the other campaigns has to be courting their major donors and bundlers who can raise hundreds of thousands of campaign dollars.

Of course, the campaigns should be courting supporters of either candidate.  That's natural.  And, in a sense, that's what this is.  But again, it's disheartening to me--and undermining to a regular voter's sense of importance in a democracy--to see that a competitive 2008 presidential campaign must exert such energy on such a select few uberwealthy individuals.  Even with Super Tuesday around the corner, campaign staff time and news media column inches are devoted to the role of the wealthy campaign donors when they could be devoted to voters and the issues that concern so many of us.

Yet another argument for publicly financed campaigns.