Greenwald's Latest - He is counter punching to great effect!

[Fuddnik]

55. I'll tell you exactly what they do.

They spend most of their days calling people for campaign contributions for their re-election campaigns.

I witnessed it a few years ago, on a 10 day trip to DC, when I was running for Congress. There's a park in front of the Capitol Bldg. It's surrounded by a black, wrought iron fence. And there are a lot of benches there. And you see all these men and women sitting on these benches making call after call after call. They're calling potential donors, because they can't use their offices for fundraising.

When they're in their office, they're meeting with lobbyists. They never sit in chambers for debate. When a vote is coming up, an alarm sounds in their office bldgs. and they run to chamber to vote, and are back in 10 minutes.

Elections have become so expensive (millions for a congressional race, 10's of millions for the Senate) that that's all they have time to do. Only a couple with huge grassroots (Wellstone, Kucinich)support can get away not doing it.

Public financing would make them earn their seats.