The amount of money being raised by all candidates is OBSCENE

[RestoreGore]

The reports that Barack Obama raised 50 million and Hillary Clinton raised 35 million this month alone doesn't make me proud, it makes me sick. And for those who would say Obama got all of that money from poor homeless people at 5 dollars a clip, spare me. Obama is getting his corporate donations from the same sources as Clinton and you can look it up at opensecrets.org. So again, don't think to try to make me believe he raised 50 million dollars or even that Clinton raised 35 million (my God, imagine all who could have healthcare off that money) from 5 dollar donations alone. They are the two with the most corporate donations.

And frankly, it is a waste of money that could be going to feeding hungry children or a much more worthy effort, but yet it gets spent on two minute soundbite ads. The main point of this being that regardless of why they are receiving these absurd amounts of money (85 million dollars between the two of them in one month while millions live on the edge in this country) that Obama is no different from Clinton in the soundbite game and working the system the same way all politicians do running for this office, and the entire system needs to be changed.

This entire system is washed in money and this campaign is said to be the most expensive in history, and to me it is ludicrous. It is nothing but a contest as to who can raise the most money because that somehow carries a certain status with it regardless of the candidate. And Mr. Gore touched upon this exact same thing in his book, The Assault On Reason and he is exactly right and makes it very clear to me why he has fallen out of love with politics.

The very process so many here once derided is being adulated. It is no wonder I have lost my motivation to even read here much anymore. Perhaps I will once again give a damn when this game is not run by the media and the dollar bill.

[BigDaddy44]

1. Do you realize how much $50M is?

Its about 17 cents from every man, woman and child in this country.

In a country this bit, it ain't that much.

[RestoreGore]

2. yeah, sure, whatever. explain it away any way you want.

The Democratic party will one day meld with the Republican party and I suppose that will be OK too.

[Perky]

3. What corporate Donations?

He is only accepting donations from individuals.

[RestoreGore]

4. Not according to this

http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/select.asp?Ind=H04

Pretty tricky way to take a CEO's donation and say it is individual. They all do it. I will not believe all of these donations are coming from poor "individuals." Many of us are too POOR to give to a presidential campaign to bring it up to 50 million in only one month. To deny this system is corrupted by money is to have your head in the sand.

[LSK]

6. "Individual contributions are generally categorized based on the donor's occupation/employer,

although individuals may be classified instead as ideological donors if they've given more than $200 to an ideological PAC."

[Perky]

7. Corporation can not donate

Individuals whether they arer corporate titans or janitors have an absolute right to donate to a campaign as individuals. I am a CEO with one emplyee and that would be me.... Do you think I have influence because I have contibutted $4,600???


Do you think I have less influence than Tom Hanks? Or Bill Gates? Giving to a campaign at the presiendtial level has no real influence unless you are giving throughh a PAC And Oh guess what? Obama is not accepting any PAC Money not even from his own PAC.

So you can talk about corportate influnece all you want.....but it doe not ovvure in this candiate's campaign fundraising.

[RestoreGore]

12. You keep telling yourself that

Amazing this system is OK when it's your boy (or girl) winning.

[Bucky]

5. That money could have gone to hire people. Like campaign workers. Or toward renting office space!

Like, um, campaign offices! That money could have supported American businesses, like, um, cell phone rental stores or catering services. Or gone to hiring, I dunno, printing services from underemployed union printers. Instead, all that money was wasted on, uh, printing and advertising and cell phone lines and event catering.

What a horrible waste!!

[sandnsea]

8. If Gore were spending it, you'd be thrilled

And if you think they aren't that different from each other, then they aren't that different from Al Gore either. It takes money to win an election and some of us clearly see the difference between Obama and Clinton. I suspect Al does too, and is only staying out of the fray in case some last minute pressure is needed to resolve the final nomination.

[RestoreGore]

11. Al Gore took public financing and Al Gore isn't; running now

What's the matter? Can't admit Obama is no better than the rest? Just ask Exelon.

[RBInMaine]

9. Raised largely from SMALL donors and scaring the R's.

This is GOOD news, and it's scaring the shit out of the R's. AWESOME !!

[FarCenter]

10. Compared to other expenditures, it's a pittance

Individual contributions up to the equivalent of a 50" flat screen TV are fine by me.

[557188]

13. Poor people don't donate to candidates

If they do they are irresponsible and stupid.

Granted I find the whole idea of donating any money to rich people to be silly.

[RestoreGore]

14. yes, these candidates are worth millions and ask poor people to give them money

Quite a jacked up system we have.

[cali]

15. It's a sucky system, but all the whining stupidity about how

all this money could buy health care or house the homeless is absurd. Our problems in those regards are due to misplaced priority WITHIN the government and a lack of will. And you're wrong. Most of Obama's funding does come from small donors- and that's according to opensecrets.