'Anything Goes' Now in Campaign Financing? Is it "anything goes" now in America's campaign finance system? John Edwards is acquitted of using campaign cash as hush money. There's an explosion of high-dollar super political action committees in the presidential race. It's all stoking criticism of revisions and regulatory loopholes in a system that was intended to keep better control of political money after Watergate. Loosening the law has made it easier for politicians to butt up against the legal line - if not cross it - and for wealthy Americans to influence who wins office, from the White House on down. All told, the immense amount of money in American campaigns, the cozy relationships between candidates and their financial backers - and now, too, a seeming lack of accountability for alleged rule-breakers - is fueling the public's long-standing distrust of its politicians and doubts about the credibility of the system. "There's not much for voters to have faith in," says Trevor Potter, a former Federal Election Commission member and a proponent of campaign-finance reform. We don't have much of a campaign-finance system at this stage, and we are wide open to the possibilities of corruption. FILE - In a Thursday, May 31, 2012 file photo, former presidential candidate John Edwards speaks outside a federal courthouse as his daughter, Cate Edwards, left, and father Wallace Edwards, listen after his campaign finance fraud case ended in a mistrial, in Greensboro, N.C. Edwards survived his campaign corruption trial and immediately started talking about his future, saying he wants to become a better father to his four kids and help the poor again, particularly children. But with his image and reputation shattered because he impregnated his mistress while his wife was dying of breast cancer, will the public need time to forgive the good-looking, smooth-talking former presidential candidate? Could he become a television commentator? Is a book or movie deal in his future, or will he fade away to family life and low-profile charity work? (AP Photo/Chuck Burton, File) Close Spanning many weeks, the Edwards trial in North Carolina showcased what prosecutors said was a classic case of misusing campaign funds: Here was a former presidential candidate, they said, who channeled large sums of money from a deep-pocketed donor to cover up a love child and a mistress. But jurors acquitted Edwards, in part because the statute he was charged under required him to know he was breaking the law. Jurors said the government didn't prove that. Said one, Sheila Lockwood: "I just felt that he didn't receive any of the money, so you can't really charge him for money that he got." Campaign finance laws have changed remarkably since Edwards ran for the White House four years ago. Had he been a candidate this year, and had his backers wanted to help him, they could have established a super PAC and donated unlimited amounts of money that could have been used in any number of ways. It's unclear if that still would have been legal for the uses in his case, although the super PACs have been able to take more risks than the campaigns they support. Super PACs are barred from coordinating with a candidate. But it doesn't seem that clarity is coming anytime soon. The FEC can't agree on new regulations. Take last December, when a Republican super PAC asked commissioners if it could "fully coordinate" with a Senate candidate. The commission deadlocked on a 3-3 vote after a heated discussion. Michael Toner, a Washington lawyer and election law expert, said it would be a mistake to conclude that the failed prosecution of Edwards means that campaign finance violations will not be prosecuted. "There's no question that there were relatively unique facts in the Edwards case," he said, and that there are other areas in campaign law where wrongdoing is clear cut - such as contributions from foreigners. It's not just the FEC. A divided Congress has shown no appetite to take up the issue in earnest despite calls for an overhaul by Democrats after a series of federal court rulings - including the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision in 2010 - started to deregulate the system.