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Who's the IDIOT who modded parent post a troll?

It's a fact that Dems are pretty much owned by the entertainment industry.

And lawyers

Who's the IDIOT who modded parent post a troll?

It's a fact that Dems are pretty much owned by the entertainment industry.

And lawyers

Not to mention the RIAA gave out just as much money to Republican candidates as it did Democrats

When you also take into account the donations from individual companies who make up the RIAA, it's not even close.

I damn sure can fault them when they are the architects of said perks. Last I checked, Goldman Sachs "donates" quite heavily in DC.

http://www.campaignmoney.com/microsoft.asp
http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=d000000115
http://blog.seattlepi.com/print.asp?entryID=136352 (this one only shows employee contributions, but it compares )

Microsoft contributes more to the Democrats than they do to the Republicans. Last year, it was nearly 3:1. OpenSecrets does show there was a time when Microsoft donated more to the Republicans, but there was never a time when Microsoft was both a top Republican contributor and gave very little money to the Democrats.

When I see this argument, I presume the mindset that produces it must be something along the lines of:

A. Microsoft is evil
B. Republicans are evil
_______________________________
C. Therefore, Microsoft is Republican

"I disagree only partially here. If you kick out private insurance entirely then you get some of the horror stories Canada grapples with. "

Oh please. I don't know what you've heard but it's probably on the order of the things we hear about the states, that is, if you walk any street at night you'll be mugged there.

I've in the states for a decade and the rest in Canada. There simply is no comparison. It's overpriced lunacy down there, the embarrasment of the world.

I'm sure you can find people that feel hard done by by the Canadian system. And for each of those there are a plethora of problems with the American system. It's so bad poeple makes movies about it.

Last year in the US the health sector spent $3.4 Billion lobbying, the only sector that spent more was the finance sector. That's 5X than defense lobbyists. They don't want to kill the gooose that lays the golden eggs.

Cite: http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?indexType=c

http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/industries.php?cycle=2010&cid=n00009869&type=I&mem=

Especially when the largest industry group contributor, Lawyers/Law Firms, was only $426k and law firms are frequently proxies for the industry clients they serve. In addition, the largest single contributor to Sen Hatch's campaign, Xango LLC, a multilevel marketing outfit located in Utah, was only $46k. Given these facts, and all the soft money that never gets reported, $19k is more than enough to buy influence with a US senator.

Orrin Hatch has taken over $96,000 From the TV/Movies/Music lobby already.

That's an interesting hypothesis, but things just don't work that way in the real world. Political campaigns raise $millions from small contributions, even though everyone knows "the chance of the [ad being produced, or whatever] doesn't actually change by any meaningful amount, my action has no real consequence, so I'm just wasting my money." Sellaband has produced 21 albums at $50,000 apiece using a similar model.

I think that these examples are more telling of the weaknesses of the model than anything else. First let's take the example of Presidential candidates; these are huge campaigns affecting millions of people's lives, drawing huge crowds to rallies and commanding an army of millions of staunch supporters. You would therefore expect them to draw substantially more donations than a film crew. Looking at the statistics, though, the overwhelming majority of candidates only just manage to draw in enough individual contributions to make one single Hollywood film. If McCain struggles to make it to $200m is it realistic to expect to raise $185 for a film? If 55 million Republicans can barely raise the money to try to secure the most powerful office in the world, I think it's clear that budgets would have to shrink enormously. You might make it to $10m, but I doubt it.

Regarding Sellaband - while it's true that it takes payment upfront, it isn't actually using your model at all. The "believers" back the band and pay its production costs; no profit is guaranteed, and the backers take 50% of the bands profits. These come from selling the album after production. Sellaband has, in fact, produced 21 albums using the traditional model, just with a different way of finding investors.

Again, take a look at the real world. If things actually worked that way, no one would ever be able to break into any service industry. Why spend money on a dentist you've never heard of, or a barber, or a mechanic, or an accountant, or a CEO? And yet somehow we get new dentists, barbers, mechanics, accountants, and CEOs all the time. Without a proven track record, you might have to lower your asking price, but you aren't shut out forever.

I think what you're referring to is the gambling effect: copyright lets you roll the dice and maybe make a runaway hit that brings in a huge windfall. On the other hand, it also lets you invest a lot of money into a film that no one really wants to see, and lose it all.

Collecting payment up front certainly does not remove the incentive to make a good film. That's because good filmmakers can command a higher price for their work than bad ones. What it does is change the dynamics of that situation: you can't rely on word of mouth, you have to actually convince buyers that you're a good filmmaker, which means you probably have to have more than a single good film in you.

Good point. However, I think there are a few fundamental differences. For one thing, these professionals all have to provide a good service because they rely on repeat business; if a film maker manages to get $50m in donations to make a film, they don't need any repeat business. Given a 10% profit margin they're already millionaires, and can make the most dreadful film in history. How many such films does it take to totally shatter peoples' confidence in the system?

Furthermore, is it really realistic to expect the millions of backers you require to sift through film proposals finding the good ones?

It lets you know ahead of time whether or not your work will be profitable. For every Dark Knight, there are a handful of Battlefield Earths that cost just as much to make but never recoup their costs.

I don't see how this is a good thing. Are you saying that every film has a right to be profitable, regardless of whether people actually want to see it?

It can't be undermined by new technology. We no

The congress works for us

Congress works for megacorps and for the investment class.

and it is our job to use our vote and our voice with our local representatives to effect policy change.

Most of us have no voice with our representatives. At the local level politics is all party machinery; at the federal level, Congressional districts are deliberately gerrymandered, and election laws rigged, to keep representatives in office. It works very well: re-election rates in the House usually top 90%.

I don't see what this has to do with consumers, as the summary seems to imply. Also, if you RTFA, no one related to the Obama administration "ruled" on anything, rather "President Obama's attorney filed papers with the Supreme Court supporting an earlier court decision that found Cablevision's remote storage DVR to be legal."

New Summary:

The Solicitor General filed a brief supporting a one company over another, after the Supreme Court already ruled that the first company was correct. Both companies were from industries that financed Obama's campaign and have done everything in their power to fuck the consumer, so the ruling is essentially meaningless to you unless you happen to own lots of fiber or lots of IP.

That's the scam. It's not about making ethanol, it's about pork dollars for the corn lobby. There is no switchgrass lobby.

But there are sugarcane lobbies and sugarcane is better than corn for making alcohol. Actually there's rumors the reason US administrations have opposed opening up trade with Cuba is because of the sugarcane lobbies. If Cuba were allowed to export it to the US a lot of growers in Florida, Hawaii, and Louisiana as well as sugar beet farmers up north would have to lower their prices in order to compeat.

Falcon

I agree with your general statements but I do take exception with the statement "This covers many Democrats and all Republicans. Unfortunately, it also seems to cover most Libertarians."

That statement regarding republicans and libertarians is part of the current liberal myths.

See this: http://www.opensecrets.org/overview/blio.php
Look here: http://www.opensecrets.org/bigpicture/DonorDemographics.php?cycle=2006
See that the Dems got the $10k and the $95K plus donation lead categories in even the 2006 cycle. IIn 2008, they smoked it by business.

Democrats got paid by business more than the Republicans. The MSM likes to say the Republicans are bought off more but it is not supported by the facts.

I'm not sure public campaign financing will work however. Do you really want to give these people more power to vote themselves more money to promote themselves? I do think it is a free speech issue and I would rather see a laws around TOTAL DISCLOSURE DOWN TO THE PENNY!!! Every penny, every donor, every time I believe would work better. Money should not equal access rather than saying money=speech is the problem. If I want to buy a billboard for my candidate, it is my money and I should be able to spend it as I see fit. It just should be fully disclosed and any quid pro quo should be obvious. That use to be what the press did but...

p.s. I'm not a republican or a democrat.

I agree with your general statements but I do take exception with the statement "This covers many Democrats and all Republicans. Unfortunately, it also seems to cover most Libertarians."

That statement regarding republicans and libertarians is part of the current liberal myths.

See this: http://www.opensecrets.org/overview/blio.php
Look here: http://www.opensecrets.org/bigpicture/DonorDemographics.php?cycle=2006
See that the Dems got the $10k and the $95K plus donation lead categories in even the 2006 cycle. IIn 2008, they smoked it by business.

Democrats got paid by business more than the Republicans. The MSM likes to say the Republicans are bought off more but it is not supported by the facts.

I'm not sure public campaign financing will work however. Do you really want to give these people more power to vote themselves more money to promote themselves? I do think it is a free speech issue and I would rather see a laws around TOTAL DISCLOSURE DOWN TO THE PENNY!!! Every penny, every donor, every time I believe would work better. Money should not equal access rather than saying money=speech is the problem. If I want to buy a billboard for my candidate, it is my money and I should be able to spend it as I see fit. It just should be fully disclosed and any quid pro quo should be obvious. That use to be what the press did but...

p.s. I'm not a republican or a democrat.

Doubtful

To build a new data center for the Social Security Administration all you need is $200M for immigration lawyers to draft legislation to lift the H-1b cap, $200M to buy Congressmen to pass it

I really don't get your point (or the joke, if there is one), but it's worth pointing out that influencing elected officials doesn't cost millions (short of large scale lobbying campaigns). If you glance at the political contributions received by influential politicians, you'll see amounts that are generally small.

To take one influential and well monied example, Chuck Schumer largest contributor was Citigroup. Obviously, the subject of how money gets collected and targeted is more complicated, but you can go down the list and see for yourself how most contributions are in the thousands or tens of thousands of dollars.

Now if you want to complain about the corrosive influence of money, stop to consider that the cost of a campaign (read "keeping your job") can be more or less attributable to voters needing TV commercials (non free in the US) to be informed and persuaded. Like most things, the cause and solution to most problem are found in the mirror.

"paying Wall Street back for filling his campaign coffers"

Obama campaign funds:
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/summary.php?id=N00009638

You forgot "GOTO 10".

Seeing as every administration since Clinton have been throwing money at big Tel/Cable in the name of "Broadband for all!"

Obama is on track to continue the tradition.

But of course, that's not what this is really about.

You want to know who "BOUGHT" him? Take a look and while you're at it, go look at the RIAA. You know how much they gave him? Precisely ZILCH. Their members did, though. A total of $5,250. I bet he's really shaking to repay that favor.

http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/summary.php?cycle=2008&cid=N00009638

They OWN the state regulators and will almost certainly end up owning the FCC with a Democrat in the White House and Democrats running Congress.

Except telecoms and cablecos give both parties a lot. Phone companies gave politicians "more than $6 million (63 percent to Republicans)".

Falcon

What?

http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.php?cid=N00005906&cycle=Career

Seems like Google, Microsoft, etc. love him.

Yes. Not only that but it is a harbinger that will eventually show where the Obama campaign probably got their campaign money from.

Your guess is only half right. Big media is nowhere to be found. Banks on the other hand...

University of California $1,385,675
Goldman Sachs $980,945
Microsoft Corp $806,299
Harvard University $793,460
Google Inc $790,564
Citigroup Inc $657,268
JPMorgan Chase & Co $650,758
Stanford University $580,904
Sidley Austin LLP $574,938
Time Warner $547,951
National Amusements Inc $541,251
WilmerHale $524,292
UBS AG $522,019
IBM Corp $518,557
Skadden, Arps et al $510,274
Columbia University $503,566
Morgan Stanley $490,873
US Government $479,956
General Electric $479,454
Latham & Watkins $467,311

From a Top Contributors list.

Besides Ron Paul, there's also Russ Feingold (D-WI) http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00000036&cycle=Career

http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00005906&cycle=Career

Corruption is not an on/off bit. It is a matter of degree.

So a public official who requires a $50 bribe is corrupt but one taking $25 is not?

I think you've got it backwards, there. A public official that accepts a $25 bribe is probably more corrupt than one that capitulates for $50 - "every man has his price", as they say. If your price is high enough, maybe no one can afford to buy you off.

Unfortunately, our politicians in Washington are relatively cheap. AIG got, what, $170 Billion dollars? Or there about? That's quite a return on a measly $208,000 (although that only includes Obama and Chris Dodd).

While we're hounding execs outside their homes over AIG bonuses, I'd like to know if AIG will still be permitted to fill campaign coffers? I know I'm supposed to be apoplectic with rage over these now taxpayer funded bonus payouts (Great Leader and Co. have been telling me so for a week now,) but shouldn't I also be outraged if AIG, using bailout money in part, continues funding Dodd's future election campaign(s)?

About 3,213 workers were in the database, and other information included data on personal relationships, political affiliations, and employment histories

And what's wrong with that? There are plenty of websites that track corporate political donations and rank companies as employers. Seems only fair.

With a presidency that is socialist-leaning and big-government-oriented, it seems we are backsliding into a kind of pre-Reagan era where business is viewed as a necessary evil, the best and brightest should work for the Feds or community organizations, and we shouldn't even try to compete with our ultra-capitalistic competitors in East Asia and elsewhere.

Let me guess where you heard that -- Rush Limbaugh? John McCain? Get a grip on yourself, man; if Obama was "socialist-leaning," how the hell did he get support from Goldman Sachs, Microsoft, Google, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, and other capitalist corporations? How did he get endorsements from such well-known millionaire capitalists as Warren Buffett, Hilary Rosen, Craig Newmark, David Geffen, etc.? How about Ben Bernanke? Or Brink Lindsey of CATO?? Do you really believe any of these people would endorse a "socialist"??

For a vast majority of the laundry list you pointed out, you completely missed the point. People in positions of power WANT a socialist in power. One that will do their bidding. Create rules to make REAL monopolies. Nothing is like being bought out by the govt. Then you can by definition not fail, unless the govt goes belly up.

Aside from many of those people being Liberal-leaning in general, which is no crime, they also have a vested interest in no one being able to start a rival company. If I was Google, I would sure as hell want to get on the govt's good side, the one that will enforce new rules, and grease the wheels of this brave new world.

If you have never heard of this concept before, you obviously haven't read anyone vaguely conservative outside of Rush. Try reading any free-market thinker, possibly a dead one like Milton Friedman.

I mean damn, this is Small Govt Rhetoric 101, you must have been dozing during class.

*disclaimer* I'm not saying Republicans(in power like senate etc) are free-marketers. They aren't. On the other hand, they are not as socialist. I'm damning with faint praise here.

With a presidency that is socialist-leaning and big-government-oriented, it seems we are backsliding into a kind of pre-Reagan era where business is viewed as a necessary evil, the best and brightest should work for the Feds or community organizations, and we shouldn't even try to compete with our ultra-capitalistic competitors in East Asia and elsewhere.

Let me guess where you heard that -- Rush Limbaugh? John McCain? Get a grip on yourself, man; if Obama was "socialist-leaning," how the hell did he get support from Goldman Sachs, Microsoft, Google, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, and other capitalist corporations? How did he get endorsements from such well-known millionaire capitalists as Warren Buffett, Hilary Rosen, Craig Newmark, David Geffen, etc.? How about Ben Bernanke? Or Brink Lindsey of CATO?? Do you really believe any of these people would endorse a "socialist"??

Interesting, comparing that link with this one: http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?cycle=2008&cid=N00006424 Apparently McCain's TOP contributor gave less than Obama's 20th top contributor. Not sure what that implies, if anything, I just think it is strange.

I really, REALLY hope you're joking if you're saying you actually BELIEVE that tripe about his campaign being funded ENTIRELY by the citizens.

http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?cycle=2008&cid=N00009638

Voting for either "side" in this broken two party corporate governance is a waste, the best you can hope for is that the guy who wins will fuck you less than the other guy.

that is unless we take control of our federal government by utilizing our state power, but who really paid attention to the local elections? Last time I checked, they were installed by the same corporations/banks that paid for McCain AND Obama!

Don't take my word for it, look it up yourself at opensecrets.org

I personally speak with my representative at least once a year.

What's your point? I've met my representative twice in the last year but that doesn't change anything I said about gerrymandered districts or the fact that the overwhelming majority of them are re-elected, oftentimes by such lopsided margins that the election really is a formality.

I live in a district that is very republican...yet my representative is a Democrat, Jim Marshal.

Kudos for you. Most of us aren't that lucky. Here's a short list of reforms off the top of my head that I would like to see with regards to the House of Representatives:

1) No more gerrymandering. Districts should be drawn in a non-partisan way that ideally respects (within the limitation of having to have them mostly the same in population) existing political and/or geographical lines. My community is regularly sliced into pieces to add more Republicans to this district and more Democrats into that district. The net result of this is that we have no voice in Washington and serve only to further the agenda of the respective political parties.

2) Representatives or those running for the position shouldn't be allowed to accept donations from those who reside outside of their district.

3) End the primary system. I'm not sure yet what I'd replace it with but surely we can do better than a system that's tailor made for the most partisan members picking those who get to stand in the general election? Maybe just let everybody who can meet a certain threshold (the signatures of 10% of the total number of people who voted in the last election?) be on the ballot. Then provide for run-off elections if nobody gets 50%+1 or use instant run off voting.

4) End the centralization of power around the leadership and seniority system in the House. I should be able to fire my Representative without worrying about my community getting dicked over because the new guy has no seniority. Likewise, I shouldn't have to worry about whether or not something that's in the best interest of my community also has the approval of the leadership.

Feinstein is not in the Top 20 of MafiAA Senate-trough-feeders, nor is she among the Top 20 Senators bought by Telcos. And she wasn't in 2006 or 2004 (I lost interest at that point).

Don't get me wrong, I think her amendment was crap and I've written to her to say so (I'm a constituent). But she's not being rewarded by the potential beneficiaries of "reasonable network management practices."

At least, not yet... :/

Feinstein is not in the Top 20 of MafiAA Senate-trough-feeders, nor is she among the Top 20 Senators bought by Telcos. And she wasn't in 2006 or 2004 (I lost interest at that point).

Don't get me wrong, I think her amendment was crap and I've written to her to say so (I'm a constituent). But she's not being rewarded by the potential beneficiaries of "reasonable network management practices."

At least, not yet... :/

I'm sure if you gave Dianne Feinstein's campaign $200000 you could get some governing done for you, too.

Corporations may be people in some legal respects, but they sure as hell can't vote.

They don't need to vote, they just simply buy their politicians instead.

Is Time Warner really one of her largest donors? Nothing to see here.... FTFA: US Senator Dianne Feinstein hopes to update President Barack Obama's $838bn economic stimulus package so that American ISPs can deter child pornography, copyright infringement, and other unlawful activity by way of "reasonable network management." SOURCE: http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.php?CID=N00007364

when you look at the long-term contribution trends http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=B02

Cheers, Mike

Hey, there's another 800 billion heading towards the banks under the new guy... Didn't you notice?

Perhaps you might have noticed that the new guy at the Fed, is the old guy from the New York fed.

Or perhaps you didn't notice Obama's biggest contributers.

http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?cycle=2008&cid=N00009638

Money bundled by Google:
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?cycle=2008&cid=N00009638

The facts as I see them are:
1) google employees, through the organisation, gave almost 1 million USD to Obama.

2) days after being sworn in, whitehouse.gov changes policy to allow google to track it's visitors. Because they want to ebmbed videos from only google into their pages.

The fair solutions (as I see them) would be to either:
1) allow all embeded media to track, not only your donors

2) host your own damned media, and don't track.

3) eliminate the no tracking policy at all.

The solution that gives me concern was:
1) specifically allow one of your largest contributors to track viewers to whitehouse.gov

Maybe only YouTube bought an exemption.

There. I fixed that for you.

Listen, the story isn't that websites can set cookies. Everyone knows this is the case.

The story is that YouTube was specifically exempted from the requirements.

So the question becomes "Why would you make a specific exemption for one provider and not for an entire class of providers?"

Yeah, it's a real mystery.

But google was such a substantial donor!

this is significant is because Google's PAC was the fourth largest contributor to the Obama campaign. So, if anything else, it just shows that Obama is beholden to corporate interests just like every other president before him. No surprise there. On another note, I have my browser configured to delete all cookies when it is closed. This really ought to be the default on all browsers, as the only thing cookies have any use for (to you) is keeping track of your transactions when you're logged into a website. If they get deleted, all you have to do is log in again.

Approximately US$800,000 was how much Microsoft funded Obama's election campaign, outbidding Google by a mere US$10,000.

The whole reason we frown on conflicts of interest is that a person in a position to make public policy should not benefit financially from that policy, lest he might do what is best for himself rather than what is best for the public good (this is also known as "a member of Congress").

But Cheney simply does not make military contractor policy, something watched like a hawk by the congressional armed services committees and their friends in the military and private contractors (i.e., the Iron Triangle). You'd have an easier time stealing a wildebeest from a pack of lions than you would poaching a major military contract from the Iron Triangle.

If you want to see a conflict of interest, look at the members of congress with naval contractors in their districts and states. Or better yet, how much money Obama took from the dreaded entertainment industry and how he ends up serving the MPAA and the RIAA. Or how his Transportation Secretary nominee benefited donors with his earmarks.

But when we have a politician with no policy-making role that effects his pocketbook, then there is no conflict of interest. That's why it matters that Cheney did not and could not make policy that rewarded him through Haliburton. It isn't a conflict that someone inadvertently profits from a decision of government which he did not make!

you instead resort to accusing me of equating him to Darth Vader, being aware of the 9/11 plot, planning to invade Iraq.

Your powers of extrapolation are... astounding.

No, I have just read the repeated posts here, on Dailykos, on HuffPost, alleging just what I "extrapolated." Several posters in this very thread have made similar arguments.

And I find it hard to believe that you are some fair-minded guy concerned about government propriety, who isn't trying to besmirch a live-long public servant simply because of ideology. I find it hard to believe because in a thread about an Obama conflict of interest, rather than being outraged by it, you bring up a tenuous at best conflict from a war launched in 2003 - by a Republican.

I wonder if I looked back at your posting history, would you be one of those who criticized the "but...Clinton!" crowd defending Bush?

The whole reason we frown on conflicts of interest is that a person in a position to make public policy should not benefit financially from that policy, lest he might do what is best for himself rather than what is best for the public good (this is also known as "a member of Congress").

But Cheney simply does not make military contractor policy, something watched like a hawk by the congressional armed services committees and their friends in the military and private contractors (i.e., the Iron Triangle). You'd have an easier time stealing a wildebeest from a pack of lions than you would poaching a major military contract from the Iron Triangle.

If you want to see a conflict of interest, look at the members of congress with naval contractors in their districts and states. Or better yet, how much money Obama took from the dreaded entertainment industry and how he ends up serving the MPAA and the RIAA. Or how his Transportation Secretary nominee benefited donors with his earmarks.

But when we have a politician with no policy-making role that effects his pocketbook, then there is no conflict of interest. That's why it matters that Cheney did not and could not make policy that rewarded him through Haliburton. It isn't a conflict that someone inadvertently profits from a decision of government which he did not make!

you instead resort to accusing me of equating him to Darth Vader, being aware of the 9/11 plot, planning to invade Iraq.

Your powers of extrapolation are... astounding.

No, I have just read the repeated posts here, on Dailykos, on HuffPost, alleging just what I "extrapolated." Several posters in this very thread have made similar arguments.

And I find it hard to believe that you are some fair-minded guy concerned about government propriety, who isn't trying to besmirch a live-long public servant simply because of ideology. I find it hard to believe because in a thread about an Obama conflict of interest, rather than being outraged by it, you bring up a tenuous at best conflict from a war launched in 2003 - by a Republican.

I wonder if I looked back at your posting history, would you be one of those who criticized the "but...Clinton!" crowd defending Bush?

Very true. Markey wasn't that great an advocate as the former chair of this subcommittee, but it's not the coup we were all hoping for. Howard Berman did head over to chair Foreign Affairs after Tom Lantos died, but it's apparently not clear yet whether he's ever going to relinquish the Judiciary IP subcommittee chairmanship that the Content Cabal pay him to cling to.

You are mostly correct in your assessment looking in. Our ties between financing campaigns and favors afterwards are well known and fairly well documented. While politicians occasionally get charged with corruption, I'd hazard a guess that it's probably only the top 1-2% of offenders, at best.

The one area you're not quite correct is in where the money actually comes from. This page shows summarized contributions from corporations, their Political Action Comities, and their employees. As you can see, it's far smaller than the total amount of funding Obama received. If you look at the voting records, Obama received around 62 million votes. If 5% of those individuals tossed $100 his direction, that's around half of his total funding, and 25 times more than he received from corporate ties.

In most elections, that would seem pretty high, and fairly unlikely. However, this was a pretty special case for us. As a whole, the country HATES President Bush. When McCain ran against Bush in 2000, he ran as a rebel, an anti-republican republican. After being crushed there, with the Bush campaign managing to smear his time as a POW and drawing into question the legitimacy of his daughter, he turned into Bush's lapdog. Nobody can really figure out why, but McCain went from being against much of the republican machine to being a cog in it.

Which such a public dislike for Bush, and with McCain viewed as being just more of the same, a lot more people in this election felt it was worth a couple hundred bucks to ensure that we would be able to get out of Iraq and fix our economy.

(But this doesn't mean that your complaint about corporate rule is in any-way unjustified. It's why I tell everyone we need another party, and it's why I refuse to vote for either party any more. )