Sen. Ernest Hollings (D-SC), who has long had a say in the course of the broadcasting industry owing to his big seat on the Commerce Committee, gave his final floor speech in the Senate last week. He didn't have much to say directly about broadcasting this time around, but he did make a couple interesting comments about campaign finance.

He discussed the increasing difficult of simply being a senator. Part of it was the drive most have to be on as many committees as possible - - which he feels has gotten out of hand. "But the main culprit, the cancer on the body politic, is money: Money, money, money," he said. The pressure to keep campaign cash flowing in has reduced the work week from five to three days, and politicians spend an inordinate amount of time servicing their campaign needs rather than their constituents.

"I worked with John McCain and Russell Feingold on the McCain-Feingold. I worked with Senator Biden on public finance. What really needs to be done, and I tried 20 years ago, is to put in a constitutional amendment that Congress is hereby empowered to regulate or control spending in Federal elections," he said. "So much per registered voter. When you are limited to $2.5 million, you have limited the campaign. You have limited the time of the campaign; you have limited the expenditures of the campaign. Then you have time for constituents. Then you have time for problems."

He concluded his remarks on campaign by referring to an icon from our past. "But if you want to limit campaigning and if you want to change - - as Abe Lincoln said - - disenthrall ourselves of the dogmas of the quiet past that are inadequate for the stormy present of money grubbing, then we have to think anew and act anew. We need to disenthrall ourselves from this money grubbing and go to work finally for the country instead of the campaign."

RBR observation:
You know what? Speaking as a voter, not a reporter, applying rational limits to campaign finance sounds good. It might not even be that bad for advertising media: Money would still be spent on campaigns, but perhaps it wouldn't be as disruptive to the conduct of normal business as it was in battleground areas this year. Regular advertisers wouldn't have to wait for the second week of November to run a schedule, and nasty LUC hits wouldn't be part of the business plan.

Will it ever happen? Fat chance.