It is a time of freedom and fear, of Gaia and of borders, of many paths and the widening of a universal toll road, emptying country and swelling cities, of the public bought into privacy and the privacy of the public sold into invisible data banks and knowing algorithms. It is the time of the warrior's peace and the miser's charity, when the planting of a seed is an act of conscientious objection.

These are the times when maps fade and direction is lost. Forwards is backwards now, so we glance sideways at the strange lands through which we are all passing, knowing for certain only that our destination has disappeared. We are unready to meet these times, but we proceed nonetheless, adapting as we wander, reshaping the Earth with every tread.

Behind us we have left the old times, the standard times, the high times. Welcome to the irregular times.


 
Over at Howard Dean's website, they heard that George W. Bush had gathered another million dollars for his campaign by hosting a dinner for 500 people who each gave the maximum legally allowed: $2,000. 500 people *$2,000 = $1,000,000.

So, following their "in Bush's face" approach, the Dean camp decided to try and match that $1,000,000. That they did is impressive. What's really notable, however, is how the Dean campaign went about doing it. In order to raise $1,003,620.00 (as of 10 pm this Tuesday) 17,115 people put in their donations. Doing the math, that means that the average donation was $58.64.

On the positive side of things, Dean motivated thirty-four times as many people into contributing as Bush did. This indicates that Dean's base of strong supporters is significantly wider than Bush's. And the sort of folks who are supporting Dean are middle-class folks: those who can spare a few bucks, but not those with money to burn. Had the 17,115 Dean donors been able to give their maximum of $2,000, Dean would have raised a whopping $34,230,000.

But that's where the negative side of things comes in. The thing is that Dean's supporters, like a huge super-majority of Americans, just can't afford to cough up $2,000. Only the richest of the rich can afford to do that sort of thing. Because they can afford much less, a Dean supporter has one-thirtyfourth the monetary influence in the primary campaigns as a Bush supporter. Put another way, Dean has to work thirty-four times harder than Bush in campaigning just to stay even.

That's unfair in a nation based on the principle that everyone should have the same say in politics. Thankfully, Dean (it would be nice --but factually inaccurate-- to add other Democratic candidates' names in here. Step up to the plate, Al Bob Carol Dennis Dick John and John) and those who believe in his vision for America are working that much harder.

Posted by James Cook at 11:26 AM. # (permalink)




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