NOW IS THE TIME FOR ALL GOOD MEN . . .

An important force in winning political office in the U.S. is green power: the money required to publicize a candidate's views and persuade the voters that he is worthy of governing by their consent. Those who give the cash exercise a vital form of political expression: they provide a basic nourishment of democracy. "Money," says California Democratic Boss Jesse Unruh, "is the mother's milk of politics." Yet Americans remain deeply suspicious of the campaign spending essential to effective elections. They fear that political contributors buy political influence. They know that even the nation's greatest political figures flout the laws regulating political fund raising. Such is the resulting public cynicism that only 10% of Americans make political contributions. Most of the political dollars come in large sums from a tiny percentage of the population.

How to finance political campaigns--honestly, adequately and from a far broader base--is surely one of U.S. democracy's biggest unsolved problems as it enters another presidential election year. As the nation grows, candidates must spend more and more to reach more and more people; while TV now puts office seekers in every living room, the enormous cost drains party budgets. Given most voters' financial apathy, the net result is a qualification for office unspecified in the Constitution: a candidate must now be rich or have rich friends or run the risk of making himself beholden to big contributors by accepting their big contributions.

The Price of Technology In 1846, Abraham Lincoln's friends raised a mere $200 to finance his race for Congress. After he won, Lincoln returned $199.25: he had canvassed the voters on his own horse and spent only 75-c---to treat some farm hands to a barrel of cider. In 1860, Lincoln won the presidency without leaving Springfield or making a single speech; his entire national campaign cost $100,000--a sum now barely sufficient for one 30-minute national telecast.

By election time, 1960, John Kennedy had traveled 44,000 miles and made 400-odd speeches in 45 states to win the White House, at a reported cost to his party of $11 million--excluding his own unreported costs. In 1964, total reported campaign costs were almost $50 million--more than double the price of 1952. On primaries alone, Loser Nelson Rockefeller personally shelled out nearly $5,000,000. The 1968 money competition may be fiercer. In the New Hampshire primary, presidential hopefuls may drop $1,000,000.

The price squeeze affects every office on the ballot. Depending on the source of the estimate, Bobby's U.S. Senate seat cost the Kennedys anywhere from $1,200,000 to $20 million. In 1966, the governorships won by California's Ronald Reagan and New York's Nelson Rockefeller each cost more than $5,000,000--the same as Adlai Stevenson's 1952 presidential race. Avid to govern Pennsylvania, Electronics Tycoon Milton Shapp spent almost $4,000,000 of his own money winning the Democratic primary--and losing the election. Today, a hot race for the U.S. House of Representatives costs $100,000, matching Lincoln's 1860 presidential campaign. In 1964, a New York congressional winner personally spent $193,000; in 1966, a North Carolina loser blew $250,000 on advertising alone. Getting elected mayor now takes from $40,000 in Springfield, Mass. (pop. 165,000), to the more than $2,000,000 laid out for New York City's John Lindsay in 1965. Other recent campaign costs include $300,000 for the president of Chicago's Cook County board of commissioners, $80,000 for a California state senator, $50,000 for a Wayne County, Mich., judge and $14,000 for a Virginia sheriff.

What compounds the U.S. candidate's need for cash is the relentless advance of technology. Ever since the Kennedy-Nixon debates of 1960, television has snarled politics in excruciating expenses. In 1964, TV-radio costs hit $35 million, up 133% over 1960. Countless more thousands flowed into newspaper ads promoting political shows. In California, TV now devours half the minimum $1,000,000 for any statewide campaign. The experts insist on the costliest TV: quickie "spots," or electronic billboards, that snag viewers before they can flip to Ed Sullivan. For ten seconds, which fadeouts cut to eight, prices range to $800; 20 seconds may cost $2,500.

Spots account for two-thirds of political TV; the experts would rather spend $400,000 for a half-hour of 20-second local spots than $10,000 for a half-hour speech. As they see it, only convinced voters listen to a full-dress speech; even debates are suspect. More than 60% of TV is often wasted on viewers who cannot vote for the candidate. To reach New Jersey requires buying time in New York or Philadelphia. Using Boston stations to reach southern New Hampshire, primary contenders will lose 20-c- per TV dollar. If a Manhattan Congressman uses TV, his words are wasted on as many as 40 other congressional districts.

And Also Bumper Stickers While it is the hungriest, TV is not the only voracious consumer of campaign dollars. The existence of fund-gulping chartered jet airplanes leads to far-flung personal appearances. More cash pours into psephological studies and computers to plumb voter psyches. Mailing costs are going up; it costs $700,000 for a single statewide California letter, plus $70,000 with the new 6-c- stamp. And one letter will not do: every candidate feels compelled to counter every rival mailer with his own two or three.

Consider bumper stickers, which a Los Angeles printing company unleashed by giving 500 free ones to a would-be assemblyman and then happily taking his rival's order for 500. This year's orders: 25 million across the land. Behind such escalation is the feeling that overwhelming money can win--at least in small constituencies. Thus in one rural Michigan congressional race, a Democrat trounced the Republican incumbent by outspending him $17,000 to $657. One term later, the Democrat confidently spent $30,000--and lost to a Republican challenger who spent $85,000.

According to the Citizens' Research Foundation of Princeton, N.J., the nation's only working watchdog of political spending, total U.S. campaign costs, reported and unreported, rose from $140 million in 1952 to $200 million in 1964. That, of course, is a sophisticated guess. The true political bill is not really known; it may be $400 million.

The sobering reason for this doubt is that U.S. disclosure laws are a joke. A reaction to the rampant capitalism of the late 19th century, when robber barons bought legislators like penny stocks, the laws were shaped by pre-World War I reformers, notably Teddy Roosevelt, who advocated federal campaign subsidies, but succeeded only in putting over negative legislation. While they cut off unclean money, the laws fail to provide new funding sources--and leave enormous loopholes through which candidates, by common consent, merrily march.

The 1925 Corrupt Practices Act and other federal laws make it as much as a five-year rap for violation of what look like very tough rules. No national bank, corporation, labor union or Government contractor can finance any federal candidate in any way. No individual may give more than $5,000 a year to any one candidate or committee. No political committee may raise or spend more than $3,000,000 a year; every committee must report to the House Clerk the names of all those who contribute $100 or more and of all those to whom at least $10 is disbursed. A House candidate may spend only up to $5,000, a Senate candidate up to $25,000. Before and after elections, every candidate must disclose all contributions and expenditures made by him or his agents "with his knowledge and consent." Candidates for President and Vice President are entirely exempt from these strictures.

In practice, the whole thing is Swiss cheese. Example: in 1960, the Democratic National Committee, supposedly bound by the $3,000,000 law, reported a $3,800,000 deficit. In 1964, ten Senate candidates, including Edward Kennedy, and 77 House candidates, including John Lindsay, reported no expenses whatever. For one thing, the law does not apply to committees operating within a single state, which exempts most Congressmen. For another, it permits the creation of numerous interstate committees that can each spend $3,000,000 a year--and secretly channel funds to the nonreporting state committees.

Any candidate can set up dozens of committees and then disclaim knowledge of what they spent on his behalf. In fact, nobody has ever been prosecuted for evading the reporting rules. How could they be? Nobody checks or audits even the acknowledged expenses. As for banned contributions, companies can easily lend favored candidates their company planes or public relations experts and give cash through individual executives. And nothing stops individuals from $5,000 gifts (pros make it $3,000 to avoid gift-tax reports) to as many committees as they please. Meanwhile, unions give via so-called independent affiliates, such as the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s Committee on Political Education, which in 1966 handed Democrats some $4,000,000.

Most state laws are even sillier. Only ten states, notably Oregon, require anything resembling adequate income-outgo reports from both candidates and committees before and after primaries as well as general elections. Seven states totally ignore the subject; loopholes riddle laws in the other 33. Maryland limits spending but exempts postage, telegrams, telephoning, stationery, printing, advertising, radio and television programs, publishing, expressage, travel and board, if paid by the candidate.

What Might Be Done To reopen public office, on a legal and sensible basis, to able Americans of modest means requires far-reaching reforms--more incentives for small givers, public funds to equalize special-interest cash, and effective disclosure of just who is paying each office seeker's bills.

The first fact to be faced is that limits on campaign spending cannot be enforced in a country where candidates must go to enormous lengths to publicize themselves, particularly against incumbents. That company and union money is already flowing into U.S. politics, for example, suggests that such contributions should be legalized and honestly disclosed. Yet legislators continue the present hypocrisy out of fear that the truth would shock the voters; besides, the ins got in under the current system, and have no desire to change it in any way that might help challengers.

So far, every attempted reform has failed. In 1962, a commission appointed by President Kennedy recommended a series of modest reforms for presidential campaigns--tax relief for small donors, repeal of limitations on individual donations and interstate committee expenditures, tighter reporting and a registry of election finance to help enforce the rules. Congress ignored the whole thing. So did Lyndon Johnson, until 1966, when Louisiana Senator Russell Long somehow bulled through a new law allowing federal tax payers to check a box on their returns authorizing a $1 gift for presidential candidates--the proceeds (a possible $60 million the first year) to be split equally between the major parties, with a pro-rata share for minor parties that received more than 5,000,000 votes in the previous election (none has ever done so). Last spring the Senate repealed the Long scheme, largely because dissident Democrats feared the effects of handing $30 million to the Johnsonian National Committee.

Now before the Senate is a new compromise package containing three ideas. First, a stiffer reporting system would exclude spending limits for federal office seekers but retain the $5,000 ceiling on individual gifts and extend disclosure rules to intrastate committees. Second, a proposed income-tax credit of half of any campaign gift up to $50 would mean a potential $25 cut in taxes. (Credits are more popular than tax deductions, which mainly benefit higher-bracket contributors.) Third, a proposed subsidy formula would give each major-party presidential candidate $14 million in federal funds this year and each major-party senatorial candidate a minimum $100,000--provided that such candidates spurn all private funds. An even stiffer House bill would, among other things, force candidates to disclose how they used the proceeds of those $100-a-plate-and-up "testimonial dinners," some of which raise $400,000 at one sitting. A reaction to the case of Senator Thomas Dodd, this would bolster the Internal Revenue Service rule that a candidate can tax-deduct dinner proceeds only if he uses them for campaigning--not for personal expenses.

None of this has a prayer of passage. Senate leaders consider the details of campaign contributions none of the public's business; budget watchers are aghast at campaign subsidies. Action is in any case unlikely amid the presidential campaign.

While Congress stalls on federal reforms, the states could move ahead by taking over get-out-the-vote drives and making registration easier, by mailing every voter a state-paid summary of candidates' qualifications (as does Oregon), and granting free time on state-run educational TV. There is no good reason why candidates should not be given office space in public buildings and cash subsidies, perhaps contingent on shorter, cost-cutting campaigns. Localities could transport voters to the polls in school buses and pay for poll watchers--all small expenses that nevertheless dent campaign funds.

Candidates themselves could save thousands in TV costs by using small radio stations that focus on specialized audiences, such as farmers, Negroes, Spanish-Americans. Radio is far cheaper than TV--$100 a minute is typical. Parties might also create endowment funds to build party resources for the future; candidates might incorporate their campaigns as nonprofit corporations, selling shares to supporters and issuing audited financial reports to voters.

Business can and should get into the political act. Potentially, one of the most effective fund-raising devices in the U.S. today is the payroll deduction on a voluntary basis. The pioneer in this respect is California's Aerojet General Corp., where in 1964 three-quarters of the employees gave an average $6.85--a total of $136,000 for 157 candidates of both parties. At Hughes Aircraft, where gifts averaged $13.76 and totaled $86,053, contribution cards were coded and locked up to ensure privacy for the donors, two-thirds of whom were first-time givers. More than 50 other California companies now run such bipartisan plans, which include plant registration drives and candidate speeches before surprisingly alert, lunch-munching employees.

More from More It would be an outrageous generality to say that the most money always wins. In 1966, Georgia's Segregationist Lester Maddox proved that a polemicist can be elected Governor just by saying the right thing to the right people. He did not even give away campaign buttons: he sold them. In 1964, Barry Goldwater's campaign for the presidency cost the most ever ($19.3 million) and lost by the biggest margin ever. What Goldwater also did was to bring the Republican Party 72% of its gifts in amounts of less than $500, making the G.O.P. for the first time in 106 years the party of the smaller contributor. This was largely the accomplishment of a zealous minority who cared about what the candidate stood for.

There is a lesson in that. Right now, with or without reforms, the one vital step that every citizen can take is to cough up a small campaign contribution in support of the party, principle or candidate that means the most to him. Only if millions of Americans come to the aid of their principles in election year 1968 will their parties truly reflect their wishes and flourish as free institutions.

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