Campaigns, Cost and Cupidity

Campaigns cost a great deal of money.  The reason, of course, is television time and access to modern day technology.  Personally, I would love to have all television advertising for political causes, people and votes made illegal.  The populous would have to learn about issues the old fashioned way, by reading and listening to candidates and their surrogates speak in forums.  I would, of course, let television give time to candidates for debate and stump speaking—heck how many repeats of crime dramas and sitcoms do we need to see?  But that isn’t going to happen; so campaigns cost a great deal of money. 

            As a result, politicians have to raise money.  In May of last year, President Obama was in Austin, Texas for a rare visit and some serious purse jingling.  His pattern was predictable.  He held a much touted college campus event where the poor students got in for a mere $44, while faculty and the common man paid up to $1000.  This allowed him to point to these fairly low-level donors as an example of his, “man-of-the-people” style.  But wait!  Then he went to a very low key, very private dinner for the real rain makers of the Democratic and liberal leaning left where tickets for individuals went for $35,000 per person and couples at $50,000.  Since Democrats like money and moneyed donors, but want to point to Republicans as the party of the rich and privileged, they don’t say much about this kind of soiree.  They are abetted in this charade by the media that are happy to advertise the cost of every Romney big-ticket event, but politely ignore the same information about Obama. 

            This Obama combination of low-cost public and high-end private funding is a predictable pattern.  For example on June 4^th of there was the obligatory small potatoes fund raiser on Broadway, followed two days later by the real money maker, a $25,000/couple gala followed by a $40,000/couple dinner. 

            The same search for Romney shows a pattern of fund raising events with $2500 to $10,000 events, with the, “hosts” contributing any where from $25,000 to $75,000.  The point is, I’ve got no problem with either party raising the money they need, as long as it is a voluntary gift and not coerced through union membership or hidden political action committees.  It is our money, we earned it; we should be able to spend it as we wish (now there is a novel thought!).  Money is the lubricant of choice for politics.  So be it.

What I do take exception to is news outlets, like MSNBC this morning, making a snarky and calculated reference to Romney attending a $2500/plate dinner while not making a single reference to Obama’s speaking engagement two days earlier that started at a (typically) $500/couple cocktail party and then ended at a $35,800/per person dinner at the home of a movie producer.   This cupidity (in this case, an obsessive desire for liberal politicians—not money) on the part of the press is so obvious it is almost counter-productive.  Typical phrases talk about Obama, “…closing the fund raising gap…” while Romney, “…attends a fat-cat dinner…”  Only people who choose to be blind could fail to notice the double standard.   

            It is also pervasive in the Democratic Party itself.  Just look at the recently released Obama ad that features a man who blames Romney for his poor wife’s death to cancer because he lost his job and thus his health insurance.  It fails to mention that his wife had her own health insurance through her job.  In this case, the, “lying by omission” borders on disgusting.   

            Examine the details and keep the faith.