he ground has cooled, passions have abated, and most people have forgotten what the fuss was all about. This case of electoral amnesia suggests how lucky one guy, Al Gore, can be. The place was Milwaukee, on the campus of Marquette University. The date was March 27 and the subject was, the vice president said, ''changing today's system of special-interest campaign financing.''
When most people confront embarrassment, they find it best to do so directly. A politician often dithers, and the apology arrives amid a chorus of cacophonous bells and hideous whistles. ''I know I may be an imperfect messenger for this cause,'' Gore said, admitting that ''Democrats, along with Republicans, engaged in fund-raising that pushed the system to the breaking point and fueled further cynicism.''
The zenith of that zeal unfolded at Hacienda Heights, Calif., in 1996, when Gore attended a fund-raiser at a Buddhist temple. Ever since, he has escalated his embarrassment into an issue bigger than most voters think it is.
In the primaries, Gore's opponent, Bill Bradley, emphasized it but did not prevail. In the GOP, Senator John McCain of Arizona made ''reform'' his centerpiece, but the totem toppled. His campaign's influence on Governor George W. Bush was limited to Bush agreeing to a ban on business and labor flooding parties in ''soft money.'' Otherwise, Bush says, ''I want to increase citizen participation'' by raising contribution levels to adjust to inflation and by posting his campaign donors on the Internet, which his campaign already does.
This minimalist approach may be, from a purely political viewpoint, just fine with most voters. Despite thunderous denunications of the status quo from many editorial pages, most folks have adopted an American axiom: If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
It's hard to find any legislative, congressional, gubernatorial, or presidential contest in which campaign funding was a decisive issue. When McCain portrayed an ''iron triangle'' of special interests arrayed against the common good, most voters asked whether this triangle had produced double-digit unemployment, ignited the flames of inflation, or otherwise wrecked the economy. No? Then why monkey with the machinery?
Gore's response is the opposite. ''I will use the full reach of the bully pulpit to press the case for McCain-Feingold,'' he said in the presence of Senator Russ Feingold in Milwaukee, where he also unveiled his ''nonpartisan Democracy Endowment.''
Hardly a minimalist approach, this endowment ''will raise more than $7 billion over seven years, and then, with the interest and the returns on investment, finance Senate and House general election campaigns - with no other contributions allowed to candidates who accept the funding.''
Who would run this endowment? With every politician compromised and corrupted by the ''iron triangle,'' where will such trustworthy eminentos be found, outside of a Buddhist temple? This notion, for Gore's sake already mercifully forgotten, is luckily a distant dream.
Maybe Gore and Bush will debate this issue in October, maybe not. In the meantime, the vice president cannot, alas, lead by example, as he confessed in Milwaukee. He must raise more money because he cannot bear seeing ''adovcates for the public interest unilaterally disarmed.... That was the choice I felt I faced in 1996 - and it was a battle to defend Medicare from deep cuts; to preserve our national commitment to education.''
He chose Marquette, perhaps because its Jesuit tradition emphasizes logic. Since his syllogisms seemed lame, Gore might better have chosen an Augustinian school. St. Augustine traveled through some sketchy territory en route to sainthood. He wrote in his ''Confessions'' that in his rambunctious youth, he sometimes prayed ''for chastity and continence, but not yet, O Lord, not yet.''
Martin F. Nolan's column appears regularly in the Globe.
