Everyone hates the system: Politicians, because they have to spend so much time raising money; donors, for having money virtually extorted from them; and most of all the public, for the pernicious influence

money buys. One thing is certain, however: Someone is benefiting, it's just not you.

Then why am I not concerned about Sen. Barbara Boxer being influenced by donations from the Sierra Club, or Sen. Orrin Hatch being swayed by money from the pharmaceutical industry? Because those philosophical alignments are already in place. In the choreography of buying and selling influence, their steps are well- rehearsed.

But that dance of the sugar daddies makes it all the more important for politicians to do everything they can to assure their constituents that, despite all that money, average people potentially have the same access as everyone else.

And that's why what Sen. Hatch did on Feb. 25 was wrong.

That evening the Salt Lake County Republican Party hosted its annual $100-per-plate Lincoln Day fund-raiser at Little America. Tables for "event sponsors" went for $5,000. There was also an auction, and Sen. Hatch contributed a "day with the senator."

As Dave Hansen, Sen. Hatch's campaign manager, explained it, the winner would have to pay his or her own expenses to Washington, but would get a full day as the senator's shadow, able to go with him wherever the public was allowed to go. Perhaps a meal would be involved.

When the bidding hit $10,000 between two bidders, auctioneer and state Republican Party Chair Joe Cannon turned to the senator and asked if he would agree to sell two days. Hatch did. The winners were Trevor Keyes and former Utah gubernatorial hopeful Fred Lampropoulos. The proceeds went to the Salt Lake County Republican Party.

But in the one-glad-hand-washes-the-other world of politics, where the money went is less important than what it bought.

From where Dr. Tony Musci sits, auctioning access to the highest bidder is "wholly objectionable." And yet the head of Utah Common Cause agrees that the issue is as much about how money distorts the system as it is about influence. "People are becoming increasingly jaded," he said. "It's helping to promote cynicism and alienation. It weakens democracy."

Neither Musci nor Dave Hansen could recall another instance where access was sold so blatantly. Hansen defended it by pointing out that it is not substantially different from other kinds of big-money fund-raisers, such as political breakfasts, adding that the senator will continue to "do his job" on the days in question. "How else are you supposed to raise money?" he asked.

Public funding of campaigns, perhaps?

The larger issue is: At a time when this country is holding itself up to the rest of the world as a beacon of democracy, what kind of signal does this send?

The late great journalist A.J. Liebling once famously noted that freedom of the press belongs to the man who owns one. It's getting to be that way with democracy: Elected representatives are a great idea - if you can afford one. Yet like the woman who inadvertently admitted her ignominious inclinations to George Bernard Shaw by haggling over her price, politicians seem hardly to realize what they have become.

It's not as if this is a partisan issue. When Steven Spielberg and others gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Democrats after sleep-overs in the White House Lincoln bedroom in 1996, it was Sen. Hatch who objected the loudest. And he was right to do so.

All the more reason for him, with his own re-election coming up next year, to do something to mitigate the impression created by similarly auctioning off access to his taxpayer-paid time.

Sen. Diane Feinstein, D-Calif., holds a weekly breakfast while Congress is in session which her constituents are invited to attend free. In that spirit, I suggest that Sen. Hatch sponsor a drawing for two constituents to spend a day each with him, no donation necessary. I hereby throw my own name into the hat, and will take my chances with everyone else.

With the going rate $10,000 a day, think of it as pro bono constituent work.

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John Yewell is a regular contributor to these pages. He may be reached at johnyewell@yahoo.com.