When Do Low-Income Americans Get Their White House Meeting?

[JReed]

99. Tells us all we need to know doesn't it? One of the myths

from the first election that seems to live on is that Obama was somehow this grassroots Mr. Smith when in fact he outpaced all candidates in funding from Wall St. and other big corporations.

In 2008 Obama out-solicited Senator McCain by more than two to one: $748 million to $354 million. Less than 10 percent of Obama’s funds were raised by trade unions and only 24 percent came from donors who gave $200 or less, compared with Ron Paul’s 39 percent and Dennis Kucinich’s 56 percent. Even George Bush raised 26 percent of his funds from small donors in 2004, so Obama’s much-vaunted reliance on small donors was a deceptive PR stunt, not a new paradigm in grass-roots democracy.

Now of course the lobbyists and assorted funders do come to call demanding a return on their investment and they are getting exactly that.