So let's get this straight: Baucus admits the public option would "hold insurance companies' feet to the fire," but he voted against it? Is there any clearer evidence that Baucus is in the pocket of the health insurance industry? Between 2003 and 2008, according to the Washington Post, Baucus took $3 million from the health and insurance sectors, 20 percent of his total contributions. And he collected half of that money in just the last two years, as the committee he chaired began holding hearings on healthcare reform.

It's possible Democrats can't muster the votes, or the procedural savvy, to pass a bill with a public option, even though a majority of senators, and a decisive majority in the House, support it. But we don't know that yet. It's not Baucus' role to prejudge what can or can't ultimately prevail, when the real action is probably going to come in the conference committee that reconciles what the more liberal House passes with what the Senate decides on. In the meantime, the Obama administration will have to leave the political sidelines and decide which arms to twist: Democrats shilling for the insurance industry, or the progressives who've pledged not to vote for a bill without a public option. There's plenty of political drama yet to come, Max. You didn't decide the bill's outcome with your self-contradictory vote today.

The harder I struggled to understand Baucus' nonsensical self-defense, only one meaning seemed possible: Baucus didn't vote against the public option despite the fact that it would "hold insurance companies' feet to the fire," but because it would. His insurance industry contributors got their money's worth today, but the people of Montana did not. Montana is one of the states with the least health-insurance competition -- 75 percent of its residents are covered by Blue Cross-Blue Shield, according to a 2007 American Medical Association report.

The public option isn't dead, no matter how hard Baucus or Democratic disappointments Blanche Lincoln and Kent Conrad fought to kill it on Tuesday. Not coincidentally, the Institute for Southern Studies reports that Conrad's North Dakota and Lincoln's Arkansas are, like Montana, among the worst states for insurance-company concentration, with 89 percent of North Dakotans and 75 percent of Arkansans covered, again, by Blue Cross-Blue Shield. These are the states where competition from the public option is needed the most.

After the Senate Finance Committee voted, the White House issued a statement saying President Obama still believes in the public option. Sen. Tom Harkin told Bill Press on Tuesday that the public option can pass the Senate "by a comfortable margin." I'm not sure that's entirely true, but Harkin is right to push Reid to include the option in the Senate's version of the bill, and force opponents to muster the votes to strip it out. How would Baucus vote, when a majority of Senate Democrats are sure to reject such a move? There's still time for Baucus to serve his constituents, not the insurance industry, but it's a shame he didn't do so on Tuesday. 

The Supreme Court, which begins a new term on Oct. 5, is working on a final decision in a case that could radically threaten our ability to make much difference in politics. In Citizens United v. FEC, the most important issue is whether the court will overturn rules that govern corporate electioneering -- that is, ads that support or oppose a candidate. For decades, legislatures and the courts have sought to limit corporations' and unions' spending in elections. This is because these groups' disproportionate ability to spend massive sums can distort the electoral process.

For decades, Congress has secured the integrity of our democracy by requiring that corporations and labor unions wishing to fund advertisements supporting or opposing candidates do so through political action committees. Instead of allowing corporations to funnel monies directly from company coffers into campaign war chests, PACs are funded through individual contributions. Campaign finance law makes it harder for corporate cash to crowd out the voices of groups -- youth voters, grassroots activists, minorities -- who are without ready access to reservoirs of money.

The Supreme Court has so far upheld this balance. The precedents in two cases, McConnell and Austin, that the court is currently considering overturning in the Citizens United case are only the latest in a long line of decisions regulating corporate expenditures in elections. But the most recent of those cases, McConnell, was decided in 2003, and the court's composition has changed. With a new majority -- specifically, with Samuel Alito and John Roberts replacing Sandra Day O'Connor and William Rehnquist -- the Supreme Court now appears to be considering an about-face on the constitutionality of much of campaign finance reform. (A lower court just struck down some campaign finance reform in Emily's List v. FEC.) If the court overturns precedent as radically as many fear, corporations and labor unions could be able to support or oppose candidates with funds right out of their treasuries.

Why does this concern younger voters like me? While our political idealism and passion run deep, our pockets generally do not. We do give what and when we can, but we certainly cannot afford to match the kind of massive expenditures corporations and unions can make. Even as it is, the financial contributions of younger voters to successful candidates often represent just a tiny part of what those candidates end up raising. According to the Campaign Finance Institute, all small donors of any age account for only 6 to 22 percent of the funds collected by Democratic and Republican senatorial candidates.

The much discussed "small-donor revolution" of the 2008 election, however, signaled a hopeful change toward a broader base of support for campaigns. An increased emphasis on smaller contributions was a natural outcome of the campaign finance laws now under threat. Limits on the size and source of contributions pushed political parties and candidates to the grass roots, and to youth, for a broader base of support. Young people played an important role in this shift. Tens of thousands of young first-time donors gave contributions as small as $10 and encouraged others to do the same. In the aggregate, this made a big difference, not only because candidates had to cultivate young people and pay attention to their views, but also because it gave young people the feeling of being stakeholders in politics and in civic life.

But a bad outcome in the Supreme Court case would dramatically reverse all this. Giant vested interests in industries like telecommunications, education, finance, energy and healthcare could make unlimited expenditures to elect or defeat candidates, all depending on how those candidates vote. The scale of the difference is almost unimaginable, on the order of hundreds of billions of dollars, more than enough to overwhelm the impact of small donors and drown out any future political opposition to corporate interests in the country.

We as young voters stand out for our opinions on war, climate change, civil rights and the role of government. And as a group, we face our own unique set of problems. To take an example from the current focus on healthcare, over 13 million of us do not have health insurance, making young adults the nation's largest group of uninsured Americans. On top of this, we have on average more debt, mostly from student loans. On a more basic level, we have the most direct stake in the future health of our planet.

The question is, Will younger voters, or any other economically disadvantaged group, be able to influence government to address these issues if the ability of corporations and labor unions to influence politics is made even stronger? Will the candidates with our interests in mind be able to compete with opponents backed by wealthier interests?

If the Supreme Court decides to overturn a century of precedent, the answers are bleak. But the young people who found their civic voice in the last election are unlikely to remain silent now. We may not be able to influence the way the Supreme Court votes, but we can stand prepared for the worst. Voluntary public funding for campaigns is one response we can call on Congress to make to the court's decision. While opening the floodgates on modern corporations' ability to fund electioneering would have unprecedented consequences, well-designed public funding systems could at least give serious candidates a better chance to compete, even if their stances aren't popular with wealthier interests. Public funding would also help allow the grass-roots activities we young Americans proved ourselves so capable of in 2008 continue to make a significant difference. In short, it would help ensure that we still matter to our democracy, no matter how the court rules.

But the FEC doesn't have a quorum right now, and the commission never officially responded to McCain's notice. Democrats say he can't withdraw from the matching program unless the FEC agrees to let him out; election lawyers (both Republicans and Democrats) have told me the law is actually a little murky on that question. Since he's now spent more than $72 million, McCain would be breaking the law if the DNC is right.

Unfortunately for Howard Dean & Co., the formal complaint the DNC filed against McCain is caught in the same limbo as McCain's request to get out of the public financing system: With no quorum, the FEC can't act on it. Democrats sued the FEC in April, trying to get a court to order the commission to investigate McCain's situation anyway. But a U.S. District Court judge threw the suit out, saying the DNC had to wait 120 days before the FEC could conceivably be ordered to do anything with the complaint.

Now that time has run, and the DNC says it'll file another suit on June 24, the 120th day. "John McCain is breaking the law and doesn't seem to care," Dean said in a press release.

But it's not clear that the Democrats would win even with a quorum -- the bipartisan FEC is notorious for dragging its feet on complaints. Chances are the election will have come and gone before the commission does anything about this one.

But that isn't really the point of the DNC's complaint, or the lawsuit. John McCain's name, after all, is on the campaign finance laws he's being accused of breaking -- this whole thing is about chipping away at his "Straight Talk"-ing, reformer image. So even if the judge throws out this lawsuit again, the DNC might still win.

Update: The Republican National Committee thinks this is about politics, too. "Having been thrown out of court just one month ago, the DNC now announces that it will once more file the same meritless lawsuit, again wasting judicial resources for its own political agenda," RNC counsel Sean Cairncross said in a press release. The GOP will try to have this lawsuit thrown out, as well.

If sincere, that would represent a refreshing departure from the depressing pattern of past campaigns, and McCain's proposal is worthy of praise (even though his first town hall in New York City Thursday night looked fake, according to Fox News). But if he is still as serious about reform as he once was -- and really wants a clean campaign -- then he will have to do what Obama has already done.

McCain should tell his party's fat cat donors in no uncertain terms that they should not support the "independent" 527 or so-called 501(c)(4) groups that will produce this year's version of the 2004 Swift boat ads.

During the course of his political career, McCain has certainly established a record of hostility to those tactics, as both a legislator and a candidate. Having confronted the same kind of shadowy negative advertising blitz, mounted in South Carolina during the 2000 Republican primary on behalf of the Bush campaign, he regards himself as a victim of that style of politics, not a perpetrator. He publicly denounced those tactics when they were used against his friend John Kerry. Then he sought to ban the kind of soft money that finances such ads, not only through legislation but in court as well, taking on groups that promoted Republican candidates and issues as well as those on the Democratic side.

That's the good ole maverick long beloved by the mainstream media and admired by independent and even some Democratic voters. But is he the same guy now running for president in 2008?

This year's McCain is not so strict on matters of campaign probity, except when he is scolding Obama. This year's McCain likes to talk reform and act unreformed.

The first sign of McCain's devious new style came last winter, with reports that his nearly bankrupt campaign had pulled a slick and possibly illegal scam by misusing the public finance system. Essentially, he had obtained a bank loan by pledging federal campaign funds as collateral -- a deal that stank on several levels, and began to smell worse when he turned around to say that he didn't want his fundraising to be restricted by the public finance system. In other words, he was trying to have it both ways, using the reform process to get a desperately needed loan, and then opting out when his own fundraising looked more promising.

Leaving aside the legal complexities, that maneuver raised red flags about McCain's lost zeal for reform. Around the same time, the Nation reported that McCain had raised large sums of money last year from the leading donors to the Swift Boat Veterans advertising war chest -- the same contributors whose dirty tactics he had once blasted. And since then, additional reporting has revealed that his most enthusiastic supporters, including Republican billionaires Jerry Perenchio and Sheldon Adelson, are also among the most generous backers of Republican 527 operations such as Progress for America and Freedoms Watch.

What will happen as the campaign unfolds is not clear -- and with the emergence of 501(c)(4) groups that need not even report the names of their donors, as the 527 groups must, it may be impossible to determine exactly who is funding negative ads.

Yet Obama has demonstrated that there is a way to discourage if not eliminate that kind of campaigning. Over the past two months, his campaign has told major Democratic donors as clearly as possible that those who give money to a 527 committee will be unwelcome in the White House if he wins in November. As a result, wealthy liberal activists seem to have abandoned their previous plans to mount independent advertising against McCain.

Though consistent with his own rhetoric, Obama's edict is risky, as he has acknowledged. He is certain to find himself (and his wife) under attack from the right, without allies who can hit back just as hard. And at this point, McCain shows no inclination to do likewise. "I can't be a referee of every spot run on television," he told the Boston Herald Thursday. More than a year ago, his top aide, Mark Salter, indicated that the campaign will do nothing to discourage 527 and other independent groups from intervening in this election. "The senator believes that both parties should be subjected to an even playing field. If Democratic organizations are allowed to take advantage of 527s, Republican organizations will, too," Salter said.

But that attitude is just further evidence that the McCain campaign, and its self-righteous candidate, want it both ways. Like every ambitious hypocrite who has winked at dirty politics, from George H.W. Bush and the Willie Horton ads to Dubya and the Swift boat attacks, the Arizona maverick is creating artificial distance between himself and his most disreputable supporters while excusing their worst misconduct.

At the moment, Democratic and Republican campaign aides are quietly negotiating how to conduct a campaign that is more debate than destruction. But that cannot occur unless McCain suddenly reverts to his former character and behaves as honorably as Obama -- and shows the guts to tell his rich supporters that he will ostracize anyone who promotes vicious advertising with sewer money.

It will be a surprise, sad to say, if we ever see that good ole maverick again.

A day after Clinton was routed in North Carolina's primary by Barack Obama, and barely eked out an Indiana victory to balance it, nothing could make her flinch as she dug in and promised that the never-ending campaign would continue. Not the delegate count, despite her being only a few contests shy of mathematical elimination from winning a majority of pledged delegates at the Democratic Convention. Not the media, which was eager to declare Obama the nominee after Clinton missed her last real chance to cut into his lead on Tuesday night. Not the defection of some prominent supporters and the steady trickle of uncommitted superdelegates to Obama on Wednesday.

Instead, Clinton and her campaign chugged along -- focusing on the next contest in West Virginia on Tuesday -- and insisting, as they have for months, that she's not only a viable candidate for president, but she's the best one. Clinton even added campaign events to her schedule Wednesday, logging a few hundred more miles on the trail to demonstrate her refusal to quit. Aides sent an e-mail at 3:42 a.m., only a few hours after most networks had declared her the winner in Indiana, announcing that Clinton would join her daughter, Chelsea, at a rally in West Virginia. "I'm staying in this race until there's a nominee, and I obviously am going to work as hard as I can to become that nominee," she said after the rally. "It's still early."

By almost all measures, that is not really the case. And perhaps most dangerous for Clinton now is the fact that a number of superdelegates -- whom she needs to win over in large numbers to have any chance to emerge the victor -- are losing patience. West Virginia Democratic Party chairman Nick Casey told Salon in a phone interview Wednesday that he wouldn't be surprised if Clinton pulled the plug on her campaign before Tuesday. Some of his colleagues in other states sounded ready for things to wrap up, too. "We can pretty much see what the primary outcome will most likely yield," Don Bivens, the Arizona Democratic Party chairman, said in an e-mail. Bivens has been neutral so far, but said he might endorse sooner than he had planned to before this week. Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, a Clinton supporter, said she wanted to hear how Clinton planned to continue the race without causing "negative dividends."

Not every uncommitted superdelegate feels that way. In Oregon, which votes May 20 (and where Obama's campaign expects him to clinch a majority of the pledged delegates), party chairwoman Meredith Wood Smith would like to see the race go on a little while longer -- say, maybe another two weeks? "I'd like to see the campaign go through May 20, because we have folks so excited out here," she said. "This is the first time in 40 years this state gets to play."

There are only six primaries left, and they'll award 217 delegates -- meaning more than 93 percent of the pledged delegates to the convention have already been won. Because the Democrats award delegates proportionally, Clinton would have to win the remaining contests with margins over 90 percent (practically impossible) to catch Obama. And the massive turnout behind Obama's big win in North Carolina means Clinton might still trail him in the popular vote even if the disputed election tallies in Michigan and Florida are counted. There may be months left before the convention, but even some of Clinton's most dogged supporters said Wednesday that the race is likely to be wrapped up in June, not long after the final primary.

Nevertheless, Clinton stayed in full "damn the torpedoes" mode Wednesday. "I am in this race," she said. "I am staying in this race."

Her supporters were right behind her. "If the Democrats nominate Hillary Clinton, she'll beat John McCain and we'll take back the White House," said Ricki Lieberman, a New Yorker who has been traveling around the country volunteering for Clinton since before the Iowa caucuses. "If the Democrats nominate Barack Obama, then we know we'll lose." Lieberman couldn't say exactly what process would let Clinton emerge with the nomination, but she was certain her logic was compelling, and that was the bottom line. "If people stop and think a minute, then she has an excellent chance."

One thing that could force Clinton out before the voting ends is her bleak financial situation. Campaign aides admitted Wednesday (after trying to dodge the question while the Indiana and North Carolina results were still unknown) that she had loaned another $6.4 million over the last few weeks. That included $425,000 on the day before the election, presumably because some bills came due for her share of the televised back-and-forth with Obama over a proposed gas tax holiday.

The fundraiser Wednesday raised some much-needed cash, but many of Clinton's reliable donors have already given the maximum that federal law allows them to give. That she's even still in the race at all now is mostly due to Internet fundraising. Though Obama has raised far more money, both overall and in small online contributions, Clinton's supporters chipped in $15 million online in March and $30 million online in February. April figures aren't available yet, but aides say Clinton raised $10 million the day after the Pennsylvania primary alone. While many of the Democratic Party's influential bloggers and passionate online activists support Obama, Clinton would have already gone broke if not for her own Internet support. (One of the ironies of this year's campaign is that the Web -- which helped Obama topple Clinton when she was the front-runner -- is now keeping her campaign afloat.)

Regardless of money concerns, Clinton and her closest aides and allies are staying focused on the near-term game. When her daughter, Chelsea, was asked at the fundraiser whether she planned a White House wedding (if she gets married, and if Clinton wins), she laughed nervously. "I don't know when a wedding would take place, and I certainly can't see past next Tuesday in West Virginia," Chelsea said.

Playing it a day at a time, focusing only on staying alive through the next contest, has worked for the Clinton campaign for weeks. But sooner rather than later they may look up and see that time is fast running out.