Clean elections make challenging even a powerful incumbent so easy that many of these onetime straw candidates are now mounting serious campaigns and, if not actually winning the race, nonetheless changing the shape of the debate. Clean elections allow us to build issue recognition even more than name recognition. Over a couple of election cycles, I think we can raise issues and help frame the debate in places where today we can't even compete. As soon as the Clean Election Act passed, the National Right to Life PAC and the Maine Civil Liberties Union challenged it in the courts. In fact, it is uncertain whether running clean actually makes an opponent look dirty in voters' eyes.
Polls say the effect is negligible.
But clean candidates routinely describe a groundswell of voter support similar to the one that greeted John McCain in the Republican primary. Even the lead plaintiff in the suit against clean money, Democratic senator Beverly Daggett, eventually did an about-face and announced she would run clean, too. Many believe they can use the issue to their advantage. But when I saw how it registered with voters, I put it prominently on the literature. Maine's clean-election law still has hurdles to overcome.