To remove the influence of money from politics, Maine in 1996 passed the Clean Elections Act, which this year will supply candidates for the state House and Senate and the governorship with approximately $9 million in public money so they can avoid the nasty dollars of private funders. This is expensive for a small, heavily taxed state, but in politics, cleanliness is next to impossible so any help in that direction is electoral manna.

So how is it going? In recent weeks the Maine Ethics Commission and its staff have handily addressed numerous campaign charges. Consider the following: Independent gubernatorial Clean Elections candidate Barbara Merrill was fined $10,000 by the commission for improperly reimbursing campaign workers; Republican candidate Chandler Woodcock and Ms. Merrill were accused and cleared of misusing the $5 contribution system to gain Clean Election money; the Ethics Commission staff concluded that gubernatorial candidate John Michael improperly listed qualifying contributions for Clean Elections funding; and the Democratic Party was fined $5,000 for failing to list mailing expenses for Clean Elections legislators.

The one nonmoney question before the commission was the charge (dismissed) that Democrats had engaged in a push poll on behalf of Gov. John Baldacci, who is raising money privately for his campaign.

This isn’t what Maine expected. Apparently, the corrupting influence of public funding is hurting Maine candidates, placing into office politicians tainted by a system that creates suspicion, accusation and occasional wrongdoing. The unfortunate citizens of Maine are then left with a political class of compromised leaders.

Or maybe the candidates’ character counts for more in a race than whether the money funding their campaigns comes from public or private sources. And if that’s so, the decision to call the public system “Clean” would become one of the more deceptive parts of the entire campaign system.