Not dead yet.

• Position: Drive for federal campaign finance reform - Editorial

It's hard not to be cynical about the prospects for campaign-finance reform. Given the enormous depravity of the Clinton Administration, and the nearly universal reluctance among politicians of both parties to do anything about getting big money out of campaigns, who can believe that Congress and the President are going to pass real reform?

In a recent article called "Teamwork," Hanna Rosin of The New Republic describes how members of both parties worked together to suppress the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, sponsored by Senators John McCain, Republican of Arizona, and Russell Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin.

Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, twisted the arms of freshman Republicans to oppose the bill. And Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, snuck around behind the scenes, closing ranks with the Republicans who want to keep the current Congressional investigation of campaign-fundraising scandals focused on the White House, and off members of Congress. "The last thing Daschle wants is a frenzy of public outrage over general fundraising abuses forcing Senators to sign up for McCain-Feingold," Rosin writes.

Rosin sneers at the good-government types: the "goo-goos," especially Feingold, who still believes that campaign-finance reform isn't dead, and that a grassroots movement will force Congress to overhaul the system. "A `grassroots upheaval'?" Rosin asks with heavy sarcasm, adding: "Evidence of a nascent mass movement is unconvincing."

But this is exactly the wrong conclusion to draw from the whole sordid campaign-finance mess. Feingold may or may not be able to rally support for his bill in this session. But two things are clear: Public disgust with the current campaign-finance system is at an all-time high; and members of both parties, while trying to position themselves as champions of reform, are doing all they can to resist real change.

The pressure is on for campaign-finance reform. But change will have to come from below.

A national poll by the Center for Responsive Politics and the Mellman Group taken last summer showed that a majority of people were in favor of reform that goes considerably further than McCain-Feingold. After hearing arguments for and against different proposals, 65 percent of respondents supported a system of full public financing that would eliminate fundraising from private sources. A 1996 Gallup poll came up with a similar finding.

A new group called Public Campaign, founded...