Opinion

Saint Cuomo

When it comes to campaign-finance reform, Andrew Cuomo is sounding a lot like St. Augustine before he changed: “Lord, make me chaste — but not yet.”

Which is to say the governor, while professing the urgent need to close the loopholes in New York’s notoriously porous campaign-finance laws, is making it clear that he intends to take full advantage of them until he can persuade the Legislature to change them.

The governor defends himself by saying that when he uses them, “they aren’t loopholes. Those are the laws that are written.” But that’s a change from his position in 2010, when he was clear about the very same fund-raising devices he’s now using. The word he used back then: loopholes.

He’s already got nearly $28 million in the bank for his 2014 re-election campaign, and the money keeps pouring in — and in big chunks. The New York Public Interest Research Group reports that 80 percent of Cuomo’s campaign donors have contributed more than $10,000 each, with 200 of them giving more than $40,000 each. That adds up to more than $8 million, nearly a third of what Cuomo has raised thus far.

Now, we have no problem with Cuomo’s raking in big — and entirely legal — donations from supporters. Indeed, we’re more skeptical than he is about the supposed “corrosive effect” of money on politics.

But if he’s going to beat his chest and proclaim to the world that such contributions are inherently corrupting, he should forego them. With a $28 million war chest already in hand, that would hardly mean unilateral disarmament. As St. Augustine understood, reforming one’s ways isn’t easy — but people really should practice what they preach.