THE WAKE-UP CALL

CLINTON MAKES SERIOUS NOISES ABOUT CAMPAIGN REFORM, BUT THAT MAY NOT BE ENOUGH TO CHANGE A COZY SYSTEM THAT LOVES SPECIAL-INTEREST MONEY

Time makes more converts than reason, Thomas Paine advised, which helps explain why Bill Clinton, having spent his career in a deep embrace with campaign money, last week declared himself disgusted with the whole system and vowed to join a revolution. Elections, he said, "take too much money, and it takes too much time to raise the money, and it always raises questions." He will have to start answering those questions in the spring, when the Senate begins hearings into the Democratic Party's fishy campaign-finance machine. As an incumbent with high approval ratings, no need to run for office again, and...

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