In setting a money-raising monthly record for August of $66 million the Obama campaign reached a total of 2.5 million campaign donors. Of course, this sounds astounding and, to Obama supporters incredibly terrific. I read this the same day that I read a most informative article in Rolling Stone: Candidates for Sale by Matt Taibbi, http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/22210615/candidates_for_sale. The point was simple: both Obama and McCain have sold out to corporate interests, leading Taibbi to say:
The truth is that the campaigns of both Barack Obama and John McCain are being inundated with cash from more or less exactly the same gorgons of the corporate scene. From Wall Street to the Big Oil powerhouses to the military-industrial complex, America's fat-cat business leaders know that the Animal House-style party of the last eight years that made almost all of them rich with bonuses, government contracts and bubble profits is about to come to an end, and someone is going to have to pay to clean up the mess. They want that someone to be you, not them, and they've spared no expense to make sure both presidential candidates will be there to bail them out next year.
They're succeeding. Both would-be presidents have already sold us out. They've taken the money and run — completing the cyclical transformation of the American political narrative from one of monopolistic Republican iniquity to an even more depressing tale about the overweening power of corporate money and the essentially fictitious nature of our two-party system.
He goes to note that: “Overall, Obama is flat-out kicking McCain's ass when it comes to Wall Street contributions, raking in nearly $9 million from securities and investment executives, compared to $6.2 million for McCain. Why would corporate giants like these throw so much weight behind a man who promises to strip them of billions in tax breaks? Sadly, the answer to that question increasingly appears to be that Obama is, well, full of sh*t.” A number of specific examples are given to show exactly how Obama has sold out the public so that he could protect corporate interests.
All of which leads me to ask can 2.5 million Obama donors be wrong? You bet. I see a whole lot of delusion based on desperation for hope and change.
All kinds of liberals, Democrats, progressives and independents will slide willingly right down the delusion-tube thinking that they have discovered the Truth in Obama. I say: never have so many deluded themselves about so much so quickly based on nothing more than a whole lot of slick, smiling rhetoric.
Making all this so easy is that McCain hardly looks honest, smart or competent. Here comes lesser-evil voting to the rescue, not of American democracy, just individuals too reluctant to understand that electing Obama will just maintain the two-party plutocracy status quo that the corporate power elites so benefit from.
