AP:
ELIZABETH, N.J. (AP) - A day after her campaign announced a record breaking fundraising haul, Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday she would support public funding of campaigns if elected president next year.
At an event where she picked up the endorsement of New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine, Clinton said she would continue the fundraising pace that helped bring in $26 million for her presidential bid in the first three months of 2007. But, she said, she hoped a different system could one day be enacted.
Now there’s a ringing endorsement for campaign finance reform, in Gov. Corzine, the man who poured his own fortune into buying a Senate seat, then using the name-rec from that to coast into the Governor’s Chair.
“I believe we have to move, eventually in our country, toward a system of public financing that really works for candidates running for federal office. I will support that as president,” she said.
But not as a Presidential candidate.
Clinton’s campaign was the first to completely opt out of the public funding system that has existed for more than 30 years. Her advisers believe she can raise more money on her own than she would have been eligible to receive under the existing system.
As Leona Helmsley might say, “public campaign funding is only for the little people.”
