Vice-President Al Gore's new plan to clean up the funding of election campaigns has got a mixed reception even from his own Democratic Party. Predictably it has been condemned by his Republican opponent in this year's presidential election, Governor George W. Bush of Texas.
Mr Gore's proposals are widely seen as a way of heading off criticism of his own behaviour during the 1996 presidential campaign. He narrowly escaped being investigated by an independent prosecutor for possible violations of federal law when he made numerous phone calls from his office soliciting funds for the re-election of President Clinton and himself.
Both Mr Gore and Mr Bush are now anxious to take over the election finance reform banner from Senator John McCain, who had made it a centre-piece of his campaign to win the Republican presidential nomination. Although Mr McCain has lost the nomination to Mr Bush, the reform appeared to excite voters in both main parties.
Mr Gore in announcing his plan this week acknowledged that he was "an imperfect messenger" because of mistakes he made in the past, such as raising money during a visit to a Buddhist temple in California. He is supporting the McCain call to ban unlimited "soft money" donations, often from corporations and labour unions, which are not subject to federal scrutiny and can be used to pay for TV ads on "issues" as long as they do not urge viewers to vote for a particular candidate.
But such ads can be used to attack an opponent's stance on sensitive issues such as health insurance, gun control and social security. President Clinton used such ads very effectively to damage his Republican opponent, Senator Bob Dole, in 1996 even before the election campaign proper had begun.
The most controversial part of Mr Gore's new plan is the setting up of a $7 billion endowment fund to finance elections to Congress. The fund would be financed by taxpayers and by tax-deductible contributions from corporations and labour unions which are banned at present from funding individual candidates.
Candidates for Congress who forgo private fund-raising would qualify for aid from the endowment fund. In this way, Mr Gore says, "we will break the connection between the giving of money and the gaining of influence in these election contests".
But critics point out that there is little incentive for corporations and labour unions if their donations are not linked to a particular party or candidate.
Mr McCain said he was not condemning the proposal but was sceptical that it would work.
Mr Bush, who has already proposed his own campaign finance reform, dismissed Mr Gore's proposal as "taxpayer-financed government take-over of campaigns".
While there is little chance that the two parties or Congress will agree on any reform plan before next November's election, Mr Gore will now be able to claim that at least he has tried to tackle the problem and that he has renounced his dubious fund-raising methods of four years ago.