MISSOURI COMMENTARY: CAMPAIGN REFORM CREATES A BIG YAWN

"We've gotten caught up in something we can't get out of." -- Gov. Roy Romer, D-Colo., new chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

"People fail to see how contaminating this is to the process of governing." -- Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., former chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

All kinds of people work in political campaigns for all kinds of reasons. There are some political warriors who look upon the fund-raising aspect of the process as an exciting game replete with hand-to-hand skirmishes where the object is to squeeze green blood out of a multitude of turnips. Each green drop successfully squeezed becomes a mini-conquest. The Clinton-Gore campaign deployed a horde of such warriors in 1996.

By his own admission, President Bill Clinton was desperate for campaign funds after the Democratic wipeout in 1994. Clinton ordered the Democratic National Committee to raise tons of money. He made himself an essential part of the process by making the White House the focal point for fat-cat donors invited to one hundred "coffees," hundreds of "overnights" in the Lincoln Bedroom, rides on Air Force One, golf dates, and the rest.

Clinton's zealous warriors provided the political bodies. People like John Huang, Charles Tree, Johnny Chung, Pauline Kanchanalak and Mark Middleton went on a solicitation rampage, producing over $2 million in dubious donations which have been returned.

Yes, some distasteful fund-raising episodes had occurred before. Dwight Eisenhower happily golfed with his rich donors. Ronald Reagan and George Bush provided special access for their Eagle and Team 100 wealthy supporters. Letters were sent out to contributors offering private meetings with President Bush for $100,000 a pop. The scent of money was most certainly around the White House before Clinton ever got there.

But that is not a defense for the fund-raising excesses of the 1996 Clinton campaign. Past obscenities do not absolve the present embarrassments. After all, it was Clinton who raised campaign finance reform as a major issue in his 1992 campaign and who failed to pursue it when the Democrats controlled Congress.

Now that there are Republican majorities in Congress, the will to reform has dropped below tepid. By and large, members of Congress are willing to let the heat focus on the Clinton campaign, but want no light to shine on their own fund-raising ploys and no movement on any reformation of the process. The uglier and looser the rules, the better it is for incumbents. They know how to play the fund-raising game. They know where the dollars are to be found and how to shake the money tree.

Without doubt, the Democratic National Committee clearly produced some of the ugliest fund-raising acts of the last election. But it is the Republicans in Congress that are the most determined to keep the evils in place. For example, Public Enemy #1 for the 1996 campaign was undoubtedly "soft" money: corporate and union funds available by the hundreds of millions for "issue advertising." It is the outpouring of "soft" money, more than anything else, that has converted recent presidential elections into gross money-corrupted enterprises. However, most Republicans realize that they can play the "soft" money game more successfully than the Democrats. To them, preserving the evil is more desirable than promoting the cure.

Sadly there is no substantial public clamor for even that one change, much less for ambitious overhaul of the entire funding process. For years, the polls have indicated that campaign finance reform was a non-voting issue -- meaning that it didn't, by and large, motivate voters tin terms of how they would cast their ballot. Candidates give only lip service to the matter.

I always felt that a presidential election would come along that would be so tawdry that the citizenry would cry out for reform. The election of 1996 seems to fit the description. But so far the public views the daily revelations with a big yawn. Perhaps further revelations and subsequent Congressional hearings will change that dynamic. Perhaps. Don't bet our house on it.

~Tom Eagleton of St. Louis is a former U.S. senator from Missouri.