When Senator Obama declined federal campaign funds totaling $84 million, there was a bit of a hue and cry. Some of the questions that flew included,
Why did he offer to take the federal funds?
Why did he turn them down, when his conditions for accepting them were met?
Why did he flip-flop?
What changed between the time he said he'd take them and then refused?
I got to thinking about those questions. And one very important one occurred to me but no one really asked it. And the more it wasn't asked, the more troubled I became. The answers to the well-trod questions seemed obvious.
In answer to the first, he said he'd 'aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election.' We know now that at its most aggressive, it was a 45-minute discussion between counsels for Obama and McCain.
Why did he turn the funds down, flip-flop? Because he wants more money and he figures we'll soon forget the promise he made in November.
What changed since he said he'd take the federal funds? Nothing changed. Just his mind. Perhaps that's the one real Change We Can Believe In.
Simply put, Senator Obama refused the $84 million, squandered our trust, and lied about the reasons for it because he's convinced he can rake in record amounts of money by asking us for donations.
And what I mean by 'us' is we, the less-than-wealthy. That's how he managed to break all fundraising records in the first place. Almost half his donors are middle and lower working classes who gave less than $200. The ceiling for giving to a campaign is $2,300. The senator's campaign is positively gleeful about the fact that they can go back to these same donors for more.
I find this contemptible. And thoughtless in the extreme. At the end of eight long years, when the middle and lower classes have truly suffered and are continuing to do so, this man who would be president has no compunction about asking us to give over two grand of the precious little money we must stretch between soaring costs for almost everything.
So I'm going to ask the important question, the one that just keeps troubling me.
Why...
when gas is approaching $5 a gallon,
when grocery bills have doubled and tripled,
when health care is simply unaffordable for so many and so expensive for so many more,
when traveling has become prohibitive because our dollar is in a subterranean hole,
when so many of us are losing the roofs over our heads and whatever savings we've managed,
when we have already given enough of our small salaries to the Obama campaign to have allowed it to break all fundraising records,
and when so many of us must refuse our children so much,
why, why should we be asked to give more because Senator Obama slammed the door shut on $84 million in public funding?
The arrogance boggles the mind.
The exploitation of the electorate is shocking.
But the lordly, vainglorious callousness is unforgivable.
