Clinton vs. Obama

I keep feeling the need to write about the battle of the media-darling corporate stooge warhawks. Everyday I see something about fundraising by this candidate or that (and by this I mean Clinton and by that I mean Obama). And everyday I am troubled. When I start to write about it, my thoughts on the subject lack cohesiveness.

Clinton had someone fundraising for her who turned about to be a fugitive of justice, wanted for grand theft. Norman Hsu used a fundraising tactic called bundling, which combines the contributions of many different donors to give it more weight. What does more weight mean?

Today Clinton’s blog is reporting that she raised $27 million for the third quarter, beating Obama in both gross money raised and number of new donors. Yesterday, the NY Times was going on about Obama’s link to a group of black entrepreneurs who supported him back in Illinois. They bailed his campaign out of hot water and he saw that their agenda got pushed in the state legislature. But it looks like their agenda wasn’t all bad (I certainly don’t know enough details to make that assessment), since he was working to remove some racial inequities they were facing. Or is that he was opening up opportunities? Again I was troubled, by his seeming willingness to take a buck and then turn those dollars into actual legislation.

John Edwards’ campaign sent an email a while back pointing the finger at Hillary over her fundraising practices. She hosted a dinner in DC where several congress people were in attendance. Cost of admission to this event was $2000 per plate, as is typical of these woo-the-rich-people functions (a mainstay of Republicans). So it seems she was trading quasi-political influence (here, look at all these Congressmen and women I can connect you too if you support me) for support. Washington business as usual.

Meanwhile principled men like Dennis Kucinich are struggling to raise dollars, because despite seeming to match the actual beliefs of voters much more closely, they haven’t been tapped by the big corporations and their media mouthpieces as electable. Doesn’t it bother people that the candidates the media has branded as electable are the only ones getting attention?