There needs to be a better, more constructive metric by which to assess a given campaigns' prospects of success versus its opponent(s). Each time I read about how a particular campaign is going in terms of who has raised how much money (frequently within these dKos diaries), my reaction generally falls somewhere between dismay and disgust.
Don't get me wrong, in the short term, if raising lots of bucks is what's required to win back the Congress in 2006, then by all means, let's raise as much as we can. But in anticipation and preparation for such an outcome, shouldn't electoral reform, including campaign finance reform be more prominent in our platform narrative?
Buckley v. Valeo, if overturned, could be great first start. Public financing of campaigns, including equal allotments of national broadcast airtime seems like another good idea. In the meantime, we ought to be able to find better ways of characterizing a campaign's status. Use of polling data is obviously one alternative metric, but there must be others. If we really must keep score, wouldn't it be more elucidating to examine how the candidates stand with the voters rather than the corporations and special interest groups?