Trackbacked at Forward Biased:
From the Washington Post:
Michael E. Toner, the chairman of the Federal Election Commission, has some friendly advice for presidential candidates who plan to be taken seriously by the time nominating contests start in early 2008: Bring your wallet.
“There is a growing sense that there is going to be a $100 million entry fee at the end of 2007 to be considered a serious candidate,” Toner said in a recent interview.
$100 million USD? Huh? How many people have access to that much money?
So in order to be President of the United States you have to:
- Be incredibly wealthy on your own
- Sell yourself to enough people to raise that much money
Therefore is anyone that COULD be President actually WORTHY to be President?
Now be careful here because I’m not saying that wealthy people are bad people, because they are not. But finding someone that just happens to have $100 million sitting in their wallet does slim down the field of candidates quite a bit.
And someone that has to “sell their soul” for the money - are they more likely to worry about your interests or the interests of their creditors?
Could Lincoln, or Jackson, or Jefferson, or Adams have a chance to be elected today? And if your answer is ‘no’, then what does that say about the state of the office of President?
1 response so far ↓
1 Crazy Politico // Mar 18, 2006 at 2:27 pm
Hell, it’s become any political office these days, if you are trying to go to DC as Congressman or Senator. Governors are spending in the 10s of Millions. It’s gotten a little crazy.