When Donald Trump first stood on a debate stage and told 10 political show dogs that he could buy them all for petty cash, he received universal approbation: A collective hallelujah erupted across the homeland, because he was condemning the corruption of campaign finance and circumventing the influence of big-money donors by paying his own way.

It became a pillar of Trump's three-legged stool of a campaign, right up there with border walls and religious tests.

"My campaign is completely self-financed," he said at every rally to deafening approval, "so I'm not controlled by lobbyists and special interests."

Just one snag there: That was a lie every step of the way, and it officially turned into a whopper Monday.

Trump has hired a hedge-fund manager with ties to George Soros and Goldman Sachs to fund-raise for him. As the New York Times reported, these are "steps to appropriate much of the Republican National Committee's financial and political infrastructure," because "he may need as much as $1.5 billion for the fall campaign."

In other words, the man known for weather-vane politics should probably stop trying to hide his duplicity.

It was bad enough that people thought he was self-funding, which was never the case: He "gave" $40 million to his campaign, but those are actually interest-free loans that will be repaid by January or written off.

And yes, Trump takes small donations from the ordinary people who visit his website.

But now he's accepting money from the establishment base, and will be obligated to shift with the political winds. One example was actually a welcome retreat on his vow to ban Muslim immigrants: "Sure I'd back off on it," he told Fox News Wednesday. "As soon as possible. Again, it's temporary."

Indeed, most of that Trump stands for is temporary.

Those small donations given on the premise that he is incorruptible, however, probably aren't temporary. Those are permanent.

More: Recent Star-Ledger editorials.

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