Super Tuesday removed any doubt that Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole will be the Republican contender this fall for the presidency. The primary race cost Mr. Dole dearly, not only because of attacks by opponents but also because of the amount of campaign money he spent in a race governed by a spending cap.

A lack of conern from Dole supporters, however, shows what a sham the cap is.

To qualify for matching federal funds, presidential candidates must agree to spend no more than $37 million in the primaries. President Bill Clinton, who faces no opposition, has spent a total of about $11 million in places such as Iowa and New Hampshire, and has plenty left to promote himself leading up to the conventions in August. Sen. Dole, after months of bruising battles in a dozen states, may have topped $35 million of the total.

No problem, according to GOP officials in news reports, the Republican Party and independent campaigns can pick up where the Dole campaign leaves off, at the very least, to keep reminding voters which party the senator comes from. They can, but in doing so they will be demonstrating that the senator has little interest in following the rules he agreed to when accepting the public’s money. They also will be exposing fatal weaknesses in the current campaign finance laws.

Partial public financing is supposed to control campaign spending, give serious but unheralded candidates a chance to compete and leave a candidate more beholden to the public than to any special interest. Both parties traditionally engage in party building, which in effect promotes the parties’ top members. But the financial condition of the Dole for President campaign suggests that without this extra support, there would be virtually no campaigning from the senator’s camp until after the conventions.

This outside support cannot promote the candidate directly, but it might be able to get away with promoting his ideas and his work within the party. It would amount to very much the same thing. Sen. Dole will be saying a lot about the values of his campaign if he allows this to happen.