Chomsky

Change comes from the bottom.

At YouTube

Link via The Politico

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Update: In Fine Print, a Proliferation of Large Donors :

Much of the attention on the record amounts of money coursing through the presidential race this year, including in Senator Barack Obama�s announcement on Sunday of his $150 million fund-raising haul in September, has focused on the explosion of small donors.

But there has been another proliferation on the national fund-raising landscape that was not fully apparent until the latest campaign finance reports were filed last week: people who have given tens of thousands of dollars at a time to help the candidates.

Enabled by the fine print in campaign finance laws, they have written checks that far exceed normal individual contribution limits to candidates, to joint fund-raising committees that benefit the candidates as well as their respective parties.

Many of these large donors come from industries with interests in Washington. A New York Times analysis of donors who wrote checks of $25,000 or more to the candidates� main joint fund-raising committees found, for example, the biggest portion of money for both candidates came from the securities and investments industry, including executives at various firms embroiled in the recent financial crisis like Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and AIG.

The joint fund-raising committees have been utilized far more heavily this presidential election than in the past. Mr. Obama�s campaign has leaned on wealthy benefactors to contribute up to $33,100 at a time to complement his army of small donors over the Internet as he bypassed public financing for the general election. More than 600 donors contributed $25,000 or more to him in September alone, roughly three times the number who did the same for Senator John McCain.

And Mr. McCain�s campaign, which had not disclosed most of these donors until last week, has taken the concept to new levels, encouraging deep-pocketed supporters to write checks of more than $70,000, by adding state parties as beneficiaries of his fund-raising.

All told, each candidate has had about 2,000 people give $25,000 or more to his various joint fund-raising committees through September.

�What we�re seeing is an emphasis on the high-end check that we have not seen since the days of soft money,� said Anthony J. Corrado Jr., a campaign finance expert at Colby College in Maine.

Interesting revelations in a race between a man who says he’s running a different kind of campaign fueld by small donors and a man who was co-author of the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Bill.

Read the rest for details, which may be significant.

Meanwhile, the man who claims money is free speech, Mitch McConnell, is running only 4 points ahead of his Democratic challenger, Bruce Lunsford, according to the latest KOS poll. [Update: Survey USA's latest poll says it's tied 48/48.] McConnell ranks 19th in the U.S. Senate for personal wealth and his campaign coffers are equally fat, so he can afford to buy obscene amounts of free speech. Most of it has been pretty hateful. He learned well from the Bushes.

It has been said that the Clinton economy floated all boats. If the Bush economy sinks a few, including McConnell’s, well, it’s an ill wind that blows nobody good.