THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT  
              Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Saturday, November 2, 1996            TAG: 9610310030
SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A12  EDITION: FINAL 
TYPE: Editorial 
                                            LENGTH:   45 lines

CLINTON SHOULD MAKE CAMPAIGN REFORM HIS ISSUE LIKE NIXON TO CHINA

Since 1984, each major party has filed October Federal Election Commission reports prior to each election giving details on fund raising. But until Monday, the Democratic National Committee was refusing to make this year's report until after the election. The hue and cry was predictable and appropriate. It has forced the DNC to comply, after all.

A spokesman for the committee, all innocence, protested that the DNC had nothing to hide. An initial accounting provided Tuesday by the DNC seems to support that case. But that makes the attempt to hide everything all the more surprising and ill-conceived. Since the Clinton campaign and the soft money apparatus at DNC were already under scrutiny for possibly illegal contributions from aliens and foreign corporations, the reluctance to open the books only fueled suspicion that there were further unexploded bombshells whose detonation the campaign was hoping to delay until after the election.

Republican candidate Bob Dole is not without taint. His campaign, too, is benefiting from millions in advertising paid for with soft money in violation or circumvention of the law. Common Cause, the long-time crusader for reform, has asked for an investigation of both parties for violations on a scale not seen since Watergate. Billionaire Ross Perot, who has the luxury of not having to raise campaign funds, has also made an issue of campaign money.

It's a sorry spectacle. Dole has at least called for serious campaign finance reform. Clinton has previously paid lip service to the idea, but now is the moment for the two candidates to agree on an outline of legislation they will commit to in the next Congress. If they don't, voter cynicism will be justified. Dole's proposal would make a useful starting place. So would the McCain-Feingold bill that the 104th Congress rejected.

This blatantly abusive campaign may finally persuade voters to demand action. Listen to reform-minded Sen. John McCain: ``I've said for a long time that there would be an instance of flagrant abuse that would finally outrage the American people. And this is it.''

It is a truism that only Richard Nixon, a leader of the anti-communist forces responsible for severing relations between China and the United States, could have taken the political risk to reopen relations. The same may be true of Clinton, if he's re-elected, when it comes to campaign finance reform. He has done as much as any candidate to twist and circumvent campaign spending laws. He could exert leadership in attempting to clean up the mess. He should. by CNB