Donuts And Politics

Look, if there’s a choice between having $84 million to run a fall campaign or raising your own funds from the over 1.5 million donors you already have, what would you do? All these people complaining that he’s either going back on a committment or destroying the public finance system (such as it is) are simply jealous about the fact that probably for the first time in recent memory, the Democrat will have more money than the Republican candidate.

The inluence of money in our political system is corrupting. But the thing is Obama does not take money from any federal lobbyists or PACs. Those are the main culprits in the money-for-influence game. Obama has over 1.5 million small donors who have given an average of less than $200 per person. So his campaign itself IS campaign finance reform and IS public financing. He is accountable to the millions of small donors who have given him money, not lobbyists and corporations and all that.

I would have been just ill if he had opted to go with the public financing. I think he will be able to raise well over $150-200 million for the general election campaign. That will help him be competitive in more states (like Montana, North Dakota, Alaska, and Georgia where he recently bought ads) AND put McCain on the defensive in states Republicans are normally guaranteed. If you look at the electoral map, Obama is starting in a much better position than McCain. But, its only June so I don’t count anything until November. And even then everything doesn’t always get counted (see 2000 election stolen by Bush).

This is a great electorla college map of the current election based on current polling data. Its fun to play around with: http://www.270towin.com/2008_polls/mccain_obama/