To the Editor:

David Brooks’s declaration that “money is really not important when both candidates are well financed” (“Money Matters Less,” column, Oct. 10) undermines his assurances that Americans need not worry about the flood of money drenching our political system.

The path to being “well financed” requires that our elected officials cater to the needs of an increasingly small donor elite writing steadily larger checks. The impact is not on the balance of power between Republicans and Democrats, but between the billionaires and the rest of us. As recent academic studies have shown, these elites’ views triumph over middle-class and lower-income families’ interests at every turn.

The antidote is to amplify the voice of everyday Americans through a system of public funds driven by small donors and to change Supreme Court rulings that permit unlimited political donations. Until then, the corrupting pursuit of election money will make government of, by and for the people an unrealized ideal.

NICK NYHART

President, Public Campaign

Washington, Oct. 10, 2014

To the Editor:

David Brooks argues that fears about the effect of the Citizens United decision and the flood of money in electoral politics are overblown. What he in fact demonstrates is that candidates from both parties are constrained by big-money interests, and that the chances for a third party of any electoral consequence arising are slim to zero, unless that party subjects itself to some of those same interests.