After an inexcusable standoff in Congress, the nation finally has a working Federal Election Commission  the agency that lacked a quorum all these months when it should have been policing the fund-raising tricks of the presidential campaigns. We hope that the panel now seizes this moment of renewal to rise above the party hackdom that has been its signature flaw.

The presidential campaign has already become a money miasma, a runaway race to break all fund-raising records. All manner of dodgy election initiatives have been concocted. But one stands out as especially in need of the commission’s urgent attention: the announced plan by the Republican Governors Association to raise large amounts of unregulated soft money in the name of Senator John McCain. Yes, the same Senator McCain who spent so many years fighting against soft money abuses.

On its face, using a fund designed to elect governors to boost a national candidacy would seem to cross legal restrictions against federal electioneering. The F.E.C. should aggressively examine this latest wrinkle and not let the issue drift, as usual, until well after the election.

(Just to make us all feel better about the state of the campaign, The Wall Street Journal reports that operatives who bankrolled the shameless Swift Boat attack ads against Senator John Kerry four years ago are investing in the governors’ kitty.)