whatever voters<u+2019> disappointment with the fractious and bitter election campaign, the moneyed forces underpinning the candidates are quietly doing very well. it<u+2019>s estimated that the $6.3 billion record set for election spending by presidential and congressional candidates in 2012 will be surpassed by at least a billion dollars this year, driven by affluent mega-donors whose insider heft with politicians grows with each seven-figure check they write. for all the discord of the campaign, there is overwhelming agreement by the public <u+2014> 78 percent, according to a bloomberg politics national poll last year <u+2014> that the supreme court<u+2019>s citizens united decision should be overturned, as it is a main cause of wealthy americans<u+2019> rising power to buy political clout. unfortunately, the public<u+2019>s concern has stirred virtually nothing in the way of a straight-talk debate between the two presidential candidates about how they would rein in the abuses of big money. this is a grave omission. the lure of outsized donations is corrupting the political process. debate moderators have let the issue slip away. hillary clinton managed to broach the subject briefly in the debate last sunday, promising to use her supreme court nominations to reverse the effects of the citizens united ruling, which in 2010 ended restraints on campaign spending by corporations and unions. donald trump continues to insist that he relies on his personal wealth, not influence-craving donors, to finance his campaign. that may have been true in the primary elections, but sheldon adelson and other republican oligarchs are heavily backing him in the homestretch drive. mr. trump speaks exuberantly of buying political influence as a businessman, and he promises to put his insider knowledge to work in overturning the <u+201c>rigged<u+201d> system, yet he offers no plan to rein in fat-cat donors. mrs. clinton began her campaign with an array of serious proposals, from overturning citizens united to overhauling the impotent federal election commission. to help level the spending field, mrs. clinton proposes to update the public financing system for presidential, senate and congressional campaigns along the lines of the new york city model, which supplies matching funds to qualified candidates. another clinton idea is to force disclosure of donors to the proliferating nonprofit groups that exploit an internal revenue service loophole by claiming to be promoting <u+201c>social welfare<u+201d> rather than political campaigns. mrs. clinton also proposes to eliminate the type of super pacs, with their unlimited contributions and spending, that pretend to be independent but are custom tailored for individual candidates. her reforms already exist as proposals in congress but need a decisive push toward enactment. these are noteworthy proposals that voters should embrace. but they demand dedicated follow-through from mrs. clinton, should she win the white house, particularly since her own campaign has been driven by large amounts of special-interest, wall street and super pac financing. her campaign insists its super pac reliance is a temporary necessity to avoid being outspent by republicans. but voters urging reform have reason for skepticism about whether they will get the reform they<u+2019>re hoping for. as a candidate, president obama also vowed to fight for big-money political reform, but he did not deliver. mrs. clinton has promised to pursue her campaign finance agenda from her first weeks in office. she would do well to focus on building support for it now. beyond her strong proposals, she should be working to elect the congressional candidates she needs to enact true reform, no easy task in a congress deeply beholden to mega-donors. this is part of a series about issues that deserve more attention in the presidential campaign. follow the new york times opinion section on facebook and twitter (@nytopinion) , and sign up for the opinion today newsletter . a version of this editorial appears in print on october 16, 2016, on page sr10 of the new york edition with the headline: the other election lunacy: big donors. today's paper | subscribe
the other campaign madness: mega-donors
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