Just wanted to say that I think this is a great question. I don’t know that McCain’s camp can make it a big enough issue to meaningfully impact voters by the election (I don’t think time is on his side to make it stick). However, it wouldn’t surprise me if, should Obama be elected, that message doesn’t get used by McCain’s party to undermine the perceived legitimacy of Obama’s administration.
That said, there were much more solid reasons to view Bush’s election as illegitimate, but that didn’t matter in the long run, either.
True, but given that so many donations were small individual donations rather than a few big ones, there’s just as strong a case that this was simply average Americans voting with their wallets, which is Good and Just and Capitalist.
Not all the same crooked things, at least. If we had no limits, then you could have some super-rich elite calling up a candidate and saying “I’ll donate a million bucks to your campaign if you’ll pass legislation favoring my industry”. He then makes the donation, and the candidate has a million-dollar check with Mr. Elite’s signature on it to prove it. On the other hand, if Mr. Elite divides his contribution up into five thousand $200 chunks and tells each of his employees “Donate this to Sen. Candidate’s campaign fund”, then when it comes time to call in the political favors and Mr. Elite calls up President Candidate and says “You owe me one”, the candidate can say “No I don’t, you only donated $200, just like all of your employees”.
It is still certainly possible for Mr. Elite to choose a candidate who already supports the policies he likes, and then do what he can to get him elected, but it’s at least harder to change the views of the candidates themselves with the donations broken up into small chunks.
The candidates, I think, know the score. But this is all theoretical regardless, and most of the actual donating goes on without their knowledge. (It’s not like Obama would be impressed by an offer of a million-dollar bribe/donation at this point anyway- his campaign makes a million dollars several times a day.) I didn’t hold Clinton responsible for the business with Norman Hsu and I don’t think any of this weirdness is a reflection on Obama.
One of the things that the $200 limit does is allow people to donate without exposing their names as contributors to employers. I wonder if the point is to lower that limit to $0 so as to discourage participation.
I have a confession to make. I have made two (2) small donations to the Obama campaign, totalling $60. I did this in an attempt to influence his campaign in a corrupting manner. And also to get a t-shirt!
