Frankly, I am glad that the Democrats have finally gotten over their
nearly four decades long obsession with campaign financing reform. I
always thought that it was not a matter of money corrupting candidates
but of money going primarily to Republicans. Democrats do have a
penchant for self-righteousness. I hope it is finished, at least on
this issue.
Even so, the Democrats didn't do at all badly, what
with those 527s and other independent vehicles that were engaged in the
campaign, although independent of the party. Both Al Gore and John
Kerry collected less money than their Republican opponents. But the
margins were not enormous.
Still, Barack Obama has caused a revolution in presidential fund-raising. As the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times
pointed out in Monday's editions, Obama raised $150 million, with
633,000 contributors giving an average of $86 each to his campaign
during the month of September. Or a total of $600 million up to October
1.
You have to have some pity for John McCain who stood by his
commitment to the federal law he had sponsored and which allowed only
so much fundraising (and spending) if the candidate decided to take
matching funds from the government. I supposed you could say that this
was a principled decision. I suspect, however, that it was a
prudential one. McCain realized he had not and could not energize even
his supporters to give what they usually did in other elections.
Campaign
financing records will not be filed with the government commission that
oversees these matters until Friday. So I am hazarding a small guess
about what you can read from the information we already have from the
Obama effort. But here is one fact that is self-evident:Democrats and
liberal Democrats, at that, are not poorer than Republicans and
conservatives. They can not only give and raise enormous sums. But
those of them who are wealthy are quite willing, even enthusiastic, to
contribute to a candidate whose success will mean an increase in their
taxes. Nobody particularly likes paying taxes. But, as Warren Buffett
said, he should not be paying a lesser percentage of his income in tax
than his secretary does. I shouldn't either, and neither should you.
Does
this willingness make Democrats more patriotic than Republicans? No.
Does it make them masochistic? No. But it is a perfectly sentient
response to a national predicament that has arisen from selfishness run
rampant and enshrined in both law and culture. So let's just agree
that it is a concrete expression of Matthew Arnold's ethical injunction
to "choose equality and flee greed."