Obama Breaks the $1 Billion Threshold

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Team Obama and its affiliated groups have surpassed one billion dollars in fundraising.  According to Politico: “Obama for America, the Democratic National Committee and their joint fundraising group Obama Victory Fund have combined to raise $1,009,000,000 since the beginning of 2011, according to a POLITICO analysis of federal campaign flings and voluntary disclosures.”

According to reports, the Obama campaign has raised only slightly more than Team Romney in the most expensive election in modern history. But the Obama campaign insists that it’s not at the one billion dollar mark yet, and has only raised 988 million thus far.

Meanwhile, those crunching the numbers say otherwise: ”Reuters totals are based on a more commonly used calculation method that includes campaign funds starting on April 1, 2011, and party efforts dating back to January 1, 2011.”

But hey, what’s a few million among friends?

Although it’s easy to cheer for Obama, these numbers are disturbing, and really go to show how money has taken over politics. How can a candidate ever hope to free him or herself from lobbied interest if huge sums of money are required to run for elected office? We should all probably stop calling for principled politicians since they could never survive in a system awash with campaign cash.

Unless voters are serious about taking money out of politics, we should admit that we’re woefully unserious about good governance. It is doubtful that having to take millions from Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan will ever lead to anything good for the American people.