Many years ago, when I was what you might call politically unconscious, I was nevertheless confused by the turmoil in South Africa over apartheid. Here was a country of five million whites and 16 million very unhappy blacks. The white ruling class was outnumbered by more than three to one. Yet the whites held all the power, all the money, did all the voting, and kept the workers whose labor actually ran the country in abject poverty.

How could that happen? What was the problem?

In a word – organization. That, and the simple will to do it.

Only when the blacks organized, stuck together, appealed to the worldwide media, and put pressure on the whites where it hurt the most – in their pocketbooks – did the situation change. And it changed big-time, creating the newest and most exciting democracy-in-the-making in the world today.

I've been thinking a lot about that situation lately, in some of the darndest places. Like the debates over term limits, the balanced budget amendment, the continuing (why?) fight of women for reproductive freedom, and campaign finance reform.

And I have been struck, over and over again, that the voters in America, like the blacks in South Africa many years ago, don't seem to understand that they literally have it within their power to change the situations they dislike. All they need is the collective will and the organization to do it.

Term limits would not be an issue if voters made a habit of going to the polls and voting out of office those representatives who are not performing up to snuff.

Our national budget would have been balanced long ago if voters made it clear to candidates that a responsible bottom line was more important than bringing home pork projects paid for with borrowed money.

At 52 percent of the population, we women have it within our power to elect any given candidate to office, and to stop in its tracks the frightening erosion of our reproductive rights.
And then there's the current biggie, campaign finance reform. Yes, there is too much money in politics. Why? Two reasons:

Because it works – because we voters for some reason respond to all the phony (and expensive) hype, thereby encouraging the phenomenon.

And because the average voter has not figured out that if she wants candidates who think like her to show up on the ballot, she'd better open her wallet as wide, as willingly and as often as she does in church, or at least at the Megabucks machine.

The religious right has figured this out. For them it was not a great leap from tithing 10 percent of their earnings to the church, to funding the grass roots candidates who reflected their beliefs. We are now living with the results of their collective will and organizational efforts.

What are you going to do about it?

When I ran for Congress in the Democratic primary in 1994, one of my television commercials had this script:

''As a grass-roots candidate, one thing I've discovered is that the people who are screaming the loudest about big money in politics have never made a political contribution – large or small – to any candidate. Want to change the world? Commit random acts of political contributions to the candidates of your choice. And don't wait to be asked.''

The political writer at the Portland Press Herald, in reviewing this ad, thought I was nuts. Was I?

In our democracy, anyone who gathers enough nominating signatures can get his or her name on the ballot. That is the only actual criteria for becoming a candidate. It doesn't cost anything, just some shoe leather and time. And that's the way it should be.

In the ideal world, the next step is for the candidates on the ballot to present their ideas to the electorate, and have the voting population decide which one they want to represent them.

But that's not how the system currently works, and the powers that be make no bones about it, either.

The editor of Campaigns and Elections magazine, in the August 1995 issue, assailed the suggestion, growing in popularity, of mandated free media time for all candidates.

''Giving politicians free time that nobody watches is giving them wooden nickels,'' Ron Faucheux wrote in an editorial. ''There's also the matter of creating a bonanza for a variety of hucksters and cranks who have neither a public purpose nor a constituency. To be fair, they would have to be given as much free access as would a Clinton or a Dole. To keep that from happening, candidate access would have to be limited by electability standards, and that raises a sticky question: Which political appointee do you think should do the limiting?''

Am I the only one to see a problem with this so-called reasoning?

At least Faucheux's conflict of interest is apparent. His magazine is read by people who make their living conducting campaigns – and producing and buying all those TV slots. But his attitude is also pervasive in places where it doesn't belong – like our free press.

One Maine political reporter last year outlined specifically the two criteria he looks for in deciding the electability of a candidate: money raised and TV time bought. He bases the extent of his coverage of any candidate on those two points. Issues, ideas, grass roots support are either secondary or irrelevant.

Funny, I always thought elections were contests for the most votes, not the most money. In my years as a newspaper reporter, I always considered the voting booth, not the reporter, to be the proper filter to determine electability, and tried to give each candidate an even break.

But apparently that's not the case these days. And when political reporters are the only things which stand between the candidates and all the free media time and space currently available, the criteria the reporters apply to candidates have an enormous impact on how much we see and hear about the people whose names are on the ballot.

Is this all right with you?

I wonder what would happen if, one day, the voters suddenly and collectively decided to consciously reject all the hype, and to consider each candidate on his or her merits alone. I wonder what we would get if we insisted on free media time for all candidates, and balanced news coverage not based on artificial standards of electability. I wonder what would change if donating to a political campaign to get good government were as normal and routine as paying admission at a hockey or basketball game to see talent of a different sort at work.

All I know is it doesn't have to be the way it is. We have in the palms of our hands the means for a real political revolution. Everyone seems to agree that it's long overdue. All we need is the collective will and the organization to make it happen.

I'm game. I'll bet you are too.

So what's the problem here?