I'm sure you have too, that so many of the maxims of our culture are true. Hackneyed as they may be, they are true folk wisdom, attained sometimes painfully through hard experience. There is one axiom that is of central importance to the campaign I am mounting for election to a four-year term as governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 2002. It is rooted in human experience back well beyond the founding of the United States, to the dawn of commerce and civilization.
Money does talk.
It serves us pretty well as a currency of trade in the functioning of our markets. But in our endless struggle as representative self- government, money is corrosive, as harmful to the body politic as hydrochloric acid to the human skin. The reasons for this are many and complex. Not surprisingly, voter participation in our elections has declined to a dangerous low. In the coming campaign, I will be joined by a number of candidates from both parties.