Large campaign donors who lavished largess on candidates in 1996 must have gotten what they wanted in return because this year they not only have given a lot more money but, no doubt to spare the candidate heavy lifting, have developed the issues, created the advertisements and put the ads on television.

The 2000 season, expected to top $3 billion in presidential and congressional races, wasn’t just the most expensive in history. It was the year a presidential candidate, George Bush, raised more than $100 million in a primary; the year both parties nearly doubled their soft-money collections from four years earlier; the year; the $67.6 million the major party presidential candidates receive in public funds was exceeded by corporate giving. Mostly, though, it was a year in which the big givers didn’t trust the candidates themselves to produce the right message.

The Washington Post, for instance, cites a study that took place between June 1 and Oct. 24, when the Bush campaign spent $28 million on advertising. During that same time, the Republican Party, fueled by corporate money, spent $36 million. Same for the Democrats. The Gore campaign spent $21 million during that time while the Democratic Party spent $31 million, plus another $9 million was spent by outside groups on Democratic issues.

Or if these issues weren’t high on the Democratic list before the ads were shown, they were after if voter response was sufficient. Campaign financing rules of the last 25 years are in shreds; money gushes in to both parties as never before, but it isn’t given in large sums because corporate officers are civic-minded. They want something in return. Until a few years ago, they wanted to influence legislation. Now, if the growing number of outside groups is an indication, they want to set the legislative agenda itself.

Voters, notoriously indifferent to campaign-finance reform, know, based on the steeply rising amount of money given, that large donations are effective investments. And they know that the chances are slight that these major donators are pushing legislation of benefit to the general public. They may suspect that their indifference allows this corrupt system to grow year by year. What they might not know is that some reforms with real teeth, like those backed by Sen. John McCain, have the votes in the Senate to pass if the public demands it loudly enough.

Ban soft money to stop unregulated dollars. Require disclosure on third-party ads to identify the people giving millions. Demand that FCC television licenses come with free ad time provisions to beat down the cost of campaigns. The solutions are at hand to stop the descent of campaigns into a financial free-for-all. All the public has to do is demand them.