I was cruising the front page diaries over at Daily Kos, and came across this little tidbit in the opening of mcjoan’s “1st Quarter FEC Filings” thread:
Santorum was another of those big spenders, $2.06M, while Casey was one of the top non-incumbent fundraisers for the period, with $2.17M. Santorum’s war chest is huge, $9M. Casey’s is more than respectable at $4.5. Rasmussen’s funky poll with the NOW question was reported around the blogosphere quite a bit earlier this month. It found a 9 point lead for Casey in a head-to-head match with Santorum, but that support slipping when Casey’s anti-choice views were explained. It’s a screwy poll–erosion of support to Casey makes sense, but why would half of them switch to Santorum? Could it be that that large a chunk of PA’s population isn’t aware that Santorum is anti-choice? Anyway, this one is tightening up. Unless a fundraising fairy-godmother waves her magic wand for Sandals or Pennachio, they don’t have a hope.
[emphasis in the last sentence mine]
I’m beginning to feel that the naysayers are right; we no longer live in a democracy, but rather a meritocracy, where power is held by those who follow the real Golden Rule: He who has the gold makes the rules.
I have a very guilty pleasure — a reality show called Starting Over. It’s on during the daytime, so most of you probably have never heard of it; six women live together in a house in LA, and work with “life coaches” and a psychologist to clear up the issues that are keeping them from living life to the fullest. Every so often one woman will fulfill her goals, “graduate” from the house, get a makeover and some gifts to help her on her way, then a new woman comes in to take her place.
Today on the show, a new “housemate” (that’s what the women are called) joined the house, with the main problem of out-of-control spending, and was pretty much unapologetic about it. “Money is power,” she said to the group. And she’s right — money is power, and if you don’t have money, you’re not going to go very far, or find too many people in the halls of power willing to listen to what you have to say. For this woman, she was willing to go thousands of dollars in debt and mortgage her future to acquire the power she wanted; for our politicians, they’re willing to mortgage the future of this country to keep their power.
Is there a solution? I’m not so sure; it’s easy to say that voters need to take our country back and tell the monied interests to take a back seat, but the truth is most voters don’t care — they’re just going to go for whoever has the flashiest commercials on TV (and again, that takes money). Attempts at restoring some funding equity such as Howard Dean’s and Russ Feingold’s are a start…but when you’re facing folks with deep pockets, it may be too little too late.
I’d like to hear some reassurances that it’s not too late — that we can take our country back from the Powers-That-Be on both sides, who put Business As Usual ahead of the country’s best interest. Or maybe I’ll just hear agreement…
