Campaign excesses

Pamela Wilmot, executive director of Common Cause Massachusetts, predicts that when it is all over next fall, the candidates in the general election will each have spent as much as $12 million in an effort to become the governor of Massachusetts.

Is anyone else nauseated yet?

The decision by Christopher Gabrieli to refuse public funds to avoid the spending limits that come with them is fresh evidence of how dysfunctional the campaign financing system has become in Massachusetts. The democratic process now amounts to allowing a wealthy venture capitalist to set the spending cap in a Democratic primary in which he faces Deval Patrick, another millionaire, and Thomas F. Reilly, a well-financed favorite of special interests.

This is what the repeal of the Clean Elections Law has wrought -- a self-selecting system in which only the rich and the wired have access to the ballot in Massachusetts. The decision of Patrick and Reilly to accept public financing has no practical effect. Because Gabrieli opted out, he gets to set the spending limit, no matter how preposterous, for all three candidates. Unless they intend to commit political suicide, they will try to match Gabrieli check for check.

``We have a situation where the Democratic Party is mobilizing its millionaires instead of mobilizing its members," said Scott Harshbarger, the 1998 Democratic gubernatorial nominee and a former national president of Common Cause who has fought hard for federal campaign finance reform. ``It is a sad commentary if you need to be independently wealthy to break into the system."

It did not have to be this way. In 1996, voters overwhelmingly endorsed a Clean Elections Law that would have provided adequate public funds to allow qualified candidates to stand for elective office. It capped contributions and expenditures to limit the influence of special interests, an idea especially unpopular with legislative incumbents who run unchallenged two-thirds of the time and win reelection 98 percent of the time. No one was surprised when the Legislature blocked the law's implementation and ultimately repealed it on a cowardly voice vote.

``What's sad is that it was never given a chance to work here," said Warren Tolman, who ran a Clean Elections campaign for governor in 2002, hobbled by delays in providing him funds. ``What I learned in '02 is that while people recognize the need to get money out of politics, it is no one's number one issue."

Gabrieli's decision was predictable , Wilmot said, ``because the money in the public fund now is too little to have made any difference. There are two kinds of people who can run: the rich and those who can raise big money. Money buys many things in this country; one of them shouldn't be political office."

In Arizona, where state law provides full public funding for candidates, the emphasis in campaigns is on issues, not fund-raising. The system has resulted in the election of more women and minorities, both historically underrepresented in office. In 2004, 10 of 11 statewide officeholders ran as Clean Elections candidates. In 2002, Janet Napolitano did, too, and was elected governor.

Tolman was in Worcester for the Democratic state convention last weekend, and he said that the delegates most excited about Gabrieli had dollar signs in their eyes. ``Over and over, I heard, `I know that after the primary he'll have enough money to take on Healey dollar for dollar,' " Tolman said. ``Chris is a good guy, but that's a shame if that's what this campaign comes down to."

There is nothing new about declining taxpayer subsidies to duck spending limits. Howard Dean and John Kerry did it in the 2004 Democratic presidential primary. Both asserted, as Gabrieli did this week, that public financing is a fine idea, just not when it puts one of them at a competitive disadvantage. At the very least, the electorate should insist on a commitment from each Democratic candidate for governor that, if he prevails, he would support a genuine system of public funding for future political campaigns.

Eileen McNamara is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at mcnamara@globe.com.