Colin Powell – pausing in his devastating dismissal of John McCain – hailed Barack Obama as a “transformational figure.”

Obama has damned sure transformed campaign fundraising.

Take a moment to absorb what it means that his campaign raised $150 million in September:

• John McCain got only $84 million in public financing for the entire campaign.
  
• Obama tripled the previous one-month fundraising record in a presidential campaign.
  
• $150 million in one month is $5 million every day, more than $200,000 every single hour.
  
• He has more than three million contributors. Many of them gave less than $100. They can give again and again.

It is downright amusing to hear McCain whining about how terrible this all is for democracy. I never heard Republicans complain back when they were outraising Democrats like crazy and burying us in a blizzard of TV ads.

And it is ironic to hear a conservative Republican criticizing a Democratic for not taking federal money.

McCain is right about one thing: Obama may have killed public financing for presidential campaigns.

But that could be a good thing. Obama may have found another – and a better – way to reform campaign fundraising.

Back in 1992, when Jerry Brown – Governor Moonbeam – was challenging Bill Clinton in the primaries, Brown suggested a $100 limit on campaign contributions. Everybody laughed.

But Obama’s fundraising machine, following the trail blazed by Howard Dean (remember him?) four years ago, suggests that Brown once again was ahead of his time.

For sure, a big part of Obama’s success has come from big givers. But what he has mainly done is harness the Internet revolution (thank you, Al Gore) to revolutionize politics. He has achieved what everybody said they wanted: true grassroots (or, netroots) politics. Small-dollar politics.

So what if we forgot about public financing and limited all contributions to $100?

Then fundraising would be like the rest of our lives: It would increasingly take place on line or by cell phones.

And there is nothing wrong with that. On Monday, the same day the Washington Post ran a story about Obama’s fundraising, it ran another story on page A7 saying that the Internet and cell phones actually are bringing American families closer together. It helps them stay in touch when they are apart.

What’s good for families could be good for politics.

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