Not only is CMCE a no-brainer to progressives, it has appeal across the board. Hey all you GOP county legislators! Imagine if you could run for office without having to kiss Steve Minarik’s ring? How about voting your conscience without Minarik punishing you? We’re talking state level CMCE at the moment, but imagine if we brought that to the county level! Talking to constituents instead of dialing/begging for dollars? The D&C:

It has been well documented that less than 1 percent of voters, like the ones who gave more than $1 million to County Executive Maggie Brooks’ successful re-election bid, account for 99 percent of campaign contributions.

So it should be no surprise that this small group of power-players has a great deal of influence. Put another way: Money talks.

True, New York has made some laudable strides in attempts to rein in special interest contributions. In fact, the Campaign Disclosure Project moved the state from 29th ranking overall to 16th in 2007. Its grade went from a “D” to a “B.”

Nevertheless, special interests still reign.

What’s great is the D&C gets it. Hold strong on this, Ed Board! Don’t let the fringe hard-right-wingers in the StoryChats get to you! The editorial gets to the heart of the matter:

Spitzer should also support such campaign finance reforms as Clean Money, Clean Elections, which provides a set amount of public funding to eligible candidates. This approach to public financing of political campaigns is currently used in Maine and Arizona.

And it has transformed those states’ legislatures:

Perhaps the best evidence of the value of coalition efforts for election reform is in the legislative results that are beginning to appear in Arizona and Maine. In both states, legislators are discovering what it is like to no longer be dependent on private contributors for their campaigns. Arizona’s newly elected Governor Janet Napolitano boasts that on the very first day of her administration this January, she signed an executive order creating a discount prescription drug program. “If I had not run clean, I would surely have been paid visits by numerous campaign contributors representing pharmaceutical interests and the like, urging me either to shelve that idea or to create it in their image,” she said in a speech this spring. “All the while, they would be wielding the implied threat to yank their support and shop for an opponent in four years.”

Maine has also made great strides in the health care arena, in large part because three-fourths of its Senate and half of its House ran clean. This spring, they passed legislation forcing the disclosure of secret deals between drug companies and middlemen, and pressuring those companies to be more open in their pricing policies. The state has also enacted a form of universal health coverage that will offer uninsured Mainers subsidized premiums based on their ability to pay. Funding for that program will come, in part, from a tax on insurance companies. Environmentalists also hailed the passage of a bill that makes Maine the first state to commit itself to clear goals to reduce its contribution to global warming, and another that aims to reduce mercury and lead pollution. All of these measures faced much tougher going in the days before clean elections.

Like I said, No. Brainer.