RALEIGH – Remember “Conjunction Junction”? It was one of the catchiest tunes in the whole “Schoolhouse Rock” series on ABC back in the 1970s. The images were of the railroad, and the song began this way:

Conjunction Junction, what’s your function?
Hookin’ up words and phrases and clauses.
Conjunction Junction, how’s that function?
I got three favorite cars that get most of my job done.
Conjunction Junction, what’s their function?
I got And, But, and Or.
They’ll get you pretty far.

The song came to mind when I read an Associated Press story about independent expenditures in the U.S. Senate race between Democrat Erskine Bowles and Republican Richard Burr. It seems that the originally reported total of advertising expenditures on Burr’s behalf by an out-of-state GOP group was far too high. But the group wasn’t the source for the original estimate. It came from those who are legally required not to know what it is.

The McCain-Feingold law, purportedly a “campaign-finance reform” measure though the real agenda was always incumbency-protection, sought to block so-called “soft money” from flowing into party organizations. These were the large contributions, sometimes from institutions such as corporations or labor unions, that bankrolled political parties’ get-out-the-vote efforts, coordinated campaigns, and other electoral expenditures. But those with money, either individuals or groups, will always want to influence the course of political events as long as such events can give them – or their adversaries – power. So now these big-dollar amounts flow into other entities, including the now-famous 527 organizations.

Last month, the Bowles campaign claimed that an independent fund affiliated with the National Republican Senatorial Committee was going to plow about $3 million in North Carolina. Some time later, Bowles strategists claimed that the buy would be even larger – more than $5 million – and then used the claim to scare Democratic donors into coughing up more cash to match it.

Now, both campaigns say the actual buy will come in at only $1.3 million. Apparently, the committee itself isn’t talking. And the campaigns are only guessing at this because campaign-finance law forbids any coordination between independent expenditures and candidates. If all of this looks clumsy and ludicrous to you, you’re getting the picture.

One can make the issue of campaign-finance reform incredibly complex. There are multiple layers of federal and state regulation, case law, competing legal theories, reporters and watchdogs running down the data, fundraising specialists skilled at evasion, and lots and lots of money flowing.

Or one can make the issue quite simple. Government is a powerful institution. Various individuals and groups, with purposes ranging from noble to mercenary, are intent on controlling it. Unless government loses much of its power to reward or punish, there will always be spirited and expensive campaigns to win political office. If the passage of new laws makes these actors pretend, scheme, and stumble around, the result will have little to do with fighting corruption or speaking truth to power. Primarily, the result will be to ensure that those already in power, or enjoying the advantages of wealth and incumbency, cannot effectively be challenged by others.

We’ve got a non-conjunction junction here, and it doesn’t function well.

Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation and publisher of Carolina Journal.