That’s What I Want

The man from Tennessee, South Knox Bubba, explains the new world of unlimited campaign fundraising:

Howard Dean rejects public campaign financing.

Instead, he’s counting on PayPal and encouraging supporters to shave their heads and hang out at airports begging for donations. He’s also hoping Confederate-flag-waving pickup-truck-driving trailer-trash Republicans will see the error and futility of their ways and forego one Wrestling Megamania Death Match pay-per-view and send him the money instead so they can get health insurance for the seven or eight naked little rug rat bastards playing with empty beer cans and Tampaxes in the dirt out by the lawn jockey next to the trailer stoop. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Meanwhile, Bush is having serious fundraising problems. Numerous limousines have sustained damage ranging from ruptured tires to broken axles under the weight of bags of cash collected at $100,000 per-plate bar-b-cue events. Campaign officials are also concerned that there aren’t enough banks to spread the deposits around to keep their accounts under the FDIC $100K insurance limit. A White House spokesperson said “It’s just another example of Bush economic policies putting people like limousine axle repairmen back to work.”

I plan on setting up a stand on the median at Pacific Coast Highway and Sepulveda and selling oranges and bags of peanuts for Clark at rush hour. It’s the least I can do. I think we can all come up with some novel ways to help out our candidates, or the Democratic party for that matter, if we just put our minds to it.

On a serious note, I think it’s absolutely a-ok to forego the funds if you can raise more than you’d lose by doing it. In Dean’s case, it’s probably going to benefit him most in the primaries where a large field is scrambling for money. But, let’s not ever delude ourselves into thinking that we can compete with the Republican machine on fundraising or even come close. Bush’s ability to raise cash is the one thing he does exceptionally well and it is the single biggest advantage he has. And, it’s a huge, huge advantage.

It’s also true, however, that if the money advantage were the only thing that mattered in presidential elections, Democrats would never win.