The death of public campaign financing

This is not really news, but it's also not good:

WASHINGTON, Jan. 22 — The public financing system for presidential campaigns, a post-Watergate initiative hailed for decades as the best way to rid politics of the corrupting influence of money, may have quietly died over the weekend.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York became the first candidate since the program began in 1976 to forgo public financing for both the primary and the general election because of the spending limits that come with the federal money. By declaring her confidence that she could raise far more than the roughly $150 million the system would provide for the 2008 presidential primaries and general election, Mrs. Clinton makes it difficult for other serious candidates to participate in the system without putting themselves at a significant disadvantage.

What we really need is a public financing program like the one in New Mexico that matches for the poor candidates whatever is spent by the rich. Unfortunately, we're going the other direction.

Frankly, from a public policy standpoint (I'll leave the legal standpoint to the lawyers) I think one of the worst decisions the Supreme Court ever made was to equate money to speech. The rich already have a plenty big megaphone. To hand them an even bigger one does no one but the rich any good.