The Audacity of Hoping for Deeper Pockets
What can you do with $75 million dollars? One might fund cutting edge research in obesity and diabtetes, or NGOs working to battle an AIDs epidemic in Africa. It could go to there innumerable Iraqis without food or roofs over their heads. Ask Bill Clinton; he might have some ideas for Giving that money to the right grassroot and NGO causes. Or forget all that how about purchasing 350,000 raffle tickets to run for leader of the ‘free world’?
Monday morning, the Obama campaign announced its third-quarter fund raising figures, bringing their grand total to a whopping $75 million from 350,000 donors. I don’t necessarily mean to single out Obama from the rest of the pack - indeed Clinton ($60m) and the rest of the candidates (on both sides) are engaged in the same race to fill their war chests. But based on the remarkable amount of media coverage, campaign finance - both how and how much to raise - has clearly ousted both health care and national security as the largest issue this election cycle. Not campaign finance reform, mind you, just campaign finance. In the house of democrats electability reigns over any other issue- we’re not interested in electing the best democrat, just the one most likely to beat Rudy Juliani.
John Edwards, for example, is in a distant third as far as fund raising is concerned. In a move bemoaned by many of his supporters, he has announced his intention to apply for federal campaign financing. Obama and Clinton are both expected to criticized him on this, not on his views regarding globalization, poverty, terrorism or civil liberties, but on his ability to compete financially with the republican opponent in a presidential election.
For those of you not completely familiar with the public finance system, we have a federal system for financing presidential primary campaigns. It is essentially a matching program - where the US government matches contributions dollar for dollar, up to $250 per contribution. You know that little check box that noone checks at the end of the tax form? That’s where the money comes from (or used to, as fewer than 8% of taxpayers are now willing contribute the meager $3.) Too, The money, however, doesn’t come without some strings; candidates must agree to a number of statutory terms regarding how they will spend the money. Candidates who opt out, however, including Barack, Hillary, Rudy and Mitt, are not subject to these terms and have complete discretion over how they spend their money.
Commercials and sound-bites win elections. Ad campaigns win elections. And Mitt Romney (because he’s using some of his own fortune to run his campaign) is the only one who has to worry about appearing as if he’s trying to buy the election?
Whether Edward’s decision to campaign within the public finance system was indeed a matter of moral high ground or of placing the best possible spin on his low balance sheets must be left to history. But for Barack Obama - who’s campaigning on being a different kind of politician, the implicit suggestion that these 350,000 ‘hard’-money contributions are somehow ethical and democratic is nauseating. The maximum individual campaign contribution allowed by the FEC is $2,300. Just how many of you out there really have an extra two grand to just shuffle off to a presidential primary candidate? I don’t, that is for sure,and neither do 60% of Americans. That many working Americans live paycheck to paycheck - meaning they could never have the means to drop that kind of cash - meaning they can’t participate as equals with those 350,000 Obama supporters in this supposedly democratic process. 350,000 out of 302 million is a pretty exclusive class of people, record or otherwise.
It is bad form these days to suggest that we live in a class-based society here in the US of A, but I find that more often than not, when you’re not supposed to say something, it means there might just be something to what you were going to say.
A disclaimer: I’m just as guilty as the next person of skipping over that check box on the tax form. There really couldn’t be a worse day than tax day for the government to ask for donations. But you can be certain I’ll never again miss my chance to contribute to the system, as broken as it is. In that John Stewart - Bill Clinton interiview I posted a few days back, the President very clearly and unashamedly stated his belief that this democracy to function we need to move to public-only financing for elections. I guess that makes it clear that we won’t be electing Clinton 2.0 if his wife takes the chair - she and Obama both plan to not apply for federal general election support, should they win the primary.
