Obama vs. McDonalds
As he was winning contests in Iowa and South Carolina, Senator Barack Obama raised $32 million in January for his presidential bid, tapping 170,000 new contributors to rake in nearly double the highest previous one-month total for any candidate in this election cycle.
The New York TImes, “Enlisting New Donors, Obama Reaped $32 Million in January”
Which is to say that, in a month, Obama raised half a day’s revenue for McDonalds, who in the last quarter of 2007 [link to http://mcdonalds.com/corp/news/fnpr/2008/fpr_012808.html no longer works], took in 5,753.6 million dollars.
It’s too bad that (Presidential candidate) John McCain is opposed to Americans spending their money on something, like the Presidency, which really matters.
Now last time I mentioned this, a lot of people asked about public funding for elections. One of the things which I find interesting about this election cycle is that two candidates, Obama and Huckabee, essentially came out of nowhere. A system of public funding has to be restricted to serious candidates. We wouldn’t want Mike Huckabee to be treated the same as Vermin Supreme, would we?
How can a public funding system allow for “out of the blue” candidates who challenge their party’s accepted wisdom about who the nominee “should” be?
Does more campaign money produce better government, or does it produce officials who are more deeply indebted to their paymasters?
Votes is money, no? The more money you raise, the more you have to give back to the lenders. Setting up an open market in the Presidency would seem a guarantee to create a bidding war that auctions off at the total value extractable from the winnings.
Wouldn’t it be better to simply buy the votes directly from the citizens?