Former U.S. Senator Nancy Kassebaum Baker said the problem with campaigning is that there is an “enormous amount of time and vitality that goes into raising money.”

At the Fourth Annual Strong-Minded Women Dinner and Award Ceremony Wednesday evening, Kassebaum spoke about the importance of campaign finance reform in an era when campaigns are extremely costly. About 150 people attended the lecture.

President Clinton appointed Baker, who was named The First Mary Louise Smith Chair in Women and Politics in 1996, and Walter Mondale to head a grass roots effort for campaign finance reform that will be beneficial for women and minorities.

Baker said there must be a way to reform how campaign funds are raised.

All the time and effort that goes into fattening campaign accounts “drains the vitality that should be spent legislating,” Baker said.

She said a campaign usually runs a total of $3,000,000 for governors.

Women, in the past, have had a greater challenge when raising funds.

However, Baker said raising money for campaigns today is a difficult task regardless of gender.

Baker also talked about how early campaigning starts.

“[People] tune out about the time everyone should get interested,” she said.

However, when events are held, she said campaign events play a substantial role in the political process.

Baker said having events is not only important for recognition purposes, but for “the importance of everyone being able and willing to take a voice and feel that they have a stake in what happens.”

Baker was a Republican senator for Kansas for 18 years.

She was the first woman to chair a major committee in the Senate. She was chairwoman of the Labor and Human Resources Committee and also a member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations where she spent time on African issues from 1980-1996.

While serving in the Senate, Baker spent much of her time on issues concerning education and health reform.

In her address, she said the nation needs to focus on the quality of education beginning at the elementary level because all learning builds on that foundation. She said this is our “biggest challenge.”

This was her second visit to Iowa State during the 1996-1997 academic year.

She left the audience with the following quote, “One should not look back in anger or forward in fear, but around with awareness.”