You won’t hear much about campaign finance reform in 2024. Good.

President Harry S. Truman, launching his 1948 election campaign on Labor Day in Detroit’s Cadillac Square, had to cut an important part of his speech because his campaign did not have money to pay for enough minutes of national radio time. Two days before the election, Eleanor Roosevelt was able to broadcast a six-minute endorsement of Truman on ABC radio nationally only because a Democratic operative produced a shopping bag stuffed with $25,721 (ABC’s price) in cash.

These historical tidbits (from David L. Roll’s “Ascent to Power,” about the transition from Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency to Truman’s) are discordant with a familiar progressive lament: “There is too much money in politics.” Has the supposed problem of “too much” political speech ever actually existed?

Read the full opinion at washingtonpost.com.