Finance reform

If campaign finance reform is your issue, Christie is not your candidate

By Star-Ledger Editorial Board

As he strolled around that pub Friday in New Hampshire, Gov. Christie stepped out of his Sinatra-at-the-Sands incarnation to play his other favorite role, that of the classroom wise guy with the teacher out of the room.

He took a shot at Hillary Clinton by calling the likely Democratic nominee a hypocrite for expecting "to raise $2.5 billion for her campaign. . . .but she wants to then get the corrupting money out of politics! Classic, right? It's classic politician speak!"

Cue giggles.

Never mind that it's a game they must all play - pause here, as a sober realism over a morose electorate - so to imply that Clinton asked for this money-stuffed pie-fight is absurd, despite her cozy relationship with Wall Street.

It wasn't as if Citizens United was brought before the Supreme Court to benefit Clinton: It was brought specifically to destroy her on the eve of the 2008 primaries, it subsequently wrecked McCain-Feingold, and it helped give us a system in which billionaires and SuperPACS rule a world that Christie himself aims to master under the command of a donor class.

So to obfuscate the issue with a fourth-grade zinger shows he is not serious about campaign finance reform, because addressing it seriously means he fears it will escalate into a rhetorical war on Sugar Daddies. The only Republican from this presidential mosh pit who has discussed it seriously, in fact, is Lindsey Graham.

A century ago, the nation understood the choices laid out by Chief Justice Brandeis: "We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few," he said. "But we cannot have both."

Clearly, we have made our choice, thanks to Justice Anthony Kennedy, who reshaped American politics with a single phrase that covers the spectrum from dim to naïve: "Independent expenditures, including these made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption," he wrote.

But while large majorities from both parties support a Constitutional amendment to repeal Citizens United, we're stuck with an election system in which the wealthy owns the power and often uses that power to boost its wealth.

At least Clinton -- sincerely or otherwise - has begun to talk about an overturn. Christie's "solution" is to perpetuate no-limit donations, with full disclosure of dark money. Transparency is always a good idea, but you're still left with an oligarchy.

And Clinton has even hired Gary Gensler as her financial officer, which is a torpedo shot across Wall Street's front porch: He helped implement Dodd-Frank, and like his predecessor at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Brooksley Born, he is despised by derivatives traders.

Indeed, she has little choice, since income inequality is a core issue for her party, and the populist oratory from the rollout could be a perfunctory nod toward her left flank.

But with Christie and his like poised to slap a Class Warfare sticker on her bumper, at least Clinton is willing to take a few laps around the rhetorical dance floor on campaign finance reform. And despite the taunts of rivals who envy her money and popularity, the voters should take her up on it.