The prices for getting into the inner sanctum are rising because of loosened restrictions on political money from the courts and Congress. These ended caps on donor maximums and expanded the party organizations’ ability to amass more of the big money that has engulfed politics since the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, in 2010.

A result is that the national parties, which previously were constrained from raising outsized amounts of “soft money” by the 2002 McCain-Feingold law, are freer to compete with the new “super PACs.” These independent money gatherers have come to dominate presidential campaigns with their ability to raise unlimited funds. The traditional party machines are now making bids to hold their own in money and influence.

More big money can only leave less hope for voters concerned that the richest donors are buying ever more influence over politicians, with favoritism and corruption an inevitable result. And the money competition only intensifies. The Democrats, fearing they are being left behind by the Republicans’ money raisers, are considering a far more aggressive use of super PACs, in House and Senate campaigns too, according to a recent report by Nicholas Confessore in The Times.

Top Democratic election lawyers asked the Federal Election Commission this month to approve dubious shortcuts around the law that Republican candidates already have been taking. One example is the “testing the waters” strategy that Jeb Bush used to raise tens of millions of dollars for his supposedly “independent” super PAC while pretending his candidacy was not a certainty.