Record Fund Raising for 2008 Presidential Election

Obscene amounts of money raised for 2008 presidential election has nothing to do with democracy:

The American public has given about $160 million to the 2008 presidential candidates so far this year, more than four times the total contributed to campaigns in the same period four years ago.

Even Barack Obama is under the influence of the big money machine:

Others drew fine distinctions among donors. Senator Barack Obama, the Illinois Democrat, has talked of running a new kind of campaign that refuses fund-raising help from federal lobbyists. But a list of his top fund-raisers released over the weekend shows that his campaign has defined the term in an exacting way.

At least two of the donors on his list of 130 top fund-raisers were registered federal lobbyists as recently as last year. One, Tom Reed, works at the law and lobbying firm of K & L Preston Gates and earned about $60,000 from lobbying in 2006.

Another, Alan Solomont, is one of the best known Democratic donors and helped raise more than $35 million for Senator John Kerry’s presidential campaign in 2004.

Mr. Solomont is the founder of a nursing home company and, during the Clinton administration, news reports suggested that he used his clout as a fund-raiser to argue against tougher regulation of nursing homes.