To the editor:

For someone who is paid for his words, as George Will is, confusing money with speech may be an occupational hazard. It reinforces his blindness to the need for campaign reform. (Journal-World, Monday).

Mr. Will should wake up to the current news coverage of next year’s presidential election. It now focuses so much on money raised by candidates that anything they have to say is muted or ignored. What an irony that failing to regulate money has come at the expense of speech. The story now is what the candidates have, not what they say.

We knew years ago that more money did not mean more information about candidates’ positions, just more repetition of their ads. Campaign finance reform will not improve the content of ads, but it will end the temptation to judge candidates by the size of their war chests.

Genuine reform would restore money to its proper place as a means for campaigning while denying it a role in evaluating candidates and more importantly, in influencing policy. Clean money campaign financing reform would eliminate the confusion between speech and money and force lobbyists to rely on the former for their influence.

Clean money candidates cite being liberated from the excessive burden of the money race and having time to actually campaign as its greatest benefit. George Will ignores that, just as he ignores the Abramoff-style corruption encouraged by the present system.

Paul Fairchild,

Lawrence