It is good for democracy that a big money doner – let us hypothetically say Johnny Hsu – can no longer funnel large amounts of dirty money to a candidate – let us hypothetically say Hillary Clinton. Thank goodness something like this can never happen again! If it did, such an action would cause the media – our even-handed, non-partisan media – to expose the wrongdoers 24/7 until justice was done.

If it is personal check, then that has to be traceable via a checking account.
That would be an interesting excursion.

Who does fund raisers where people bring thousands of dollars in cash?

I would be interesting to learn how the money at a fund raiser is actually transferred.

But the Clintons are Obama, Dean or the others. The Clintons haven’t demostrated that THEY can raise this kind of cash without these shady operators.

What I really want to see is for someone to ask McCain how he thinks McCain-Feingold is working out in the real world.

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WILD SPECULATION SECTION

Suppose that Hillary manages to blast through the first few primaries and such, fatally wounding the campaigns of Obama and Edwards, but in the process those two raise such a stink that this finally becomes a scandal to bring the Clintons low. The Democratic Party may need a savior at that point. But with O & E already looking raggedy, the party won’t be able to turn to them. But waiting off-stage is Al Gore. I really think Al would love to be the nominee again, I just don’t think he wants to go through the hell of the nomination process. This could be how he finally gets another shot.

Still, this kind of thing is distasteful, counter-productive and unnecessary. Obama, Dean and others have demonstrated that you can raise considerable campaign cash without having to rely on shady operators. I wish more politicians would figure this out. Maybe then our system wouldn’t be so corrupt.