The Democrats should renounce corporate donations in the '06 and '08 campaigns. I got wrapped up in the Dean campaign a bit last summer. I contributed about $500 and was prepared to come up with $1,500 more, had he been the nominee. I don't really want to debate whether or not Dean was a strong candidate. Trippi in interviews is playing up their fundraising suceess as unprecedented and historic. He makes a good point but I'm not sure it has much to do with Dean per se. Kerry was just as successful in raising donations from ordinary people, once he became the candidate. The real story here is that people like me, previously interested but only tangentially could become strong donors and supporters. I'd given fifty bucks here and there, especially if someone I knew was running for city assembly or state house or something -- but the idea of giving $2k to a presidential candidate was incomprehensible. And it wouldn't have necessarily been easy to raise the money. On the other hand, it might have been the best damned investment i could make, had things worked out.
Many of the large corporations are now so far from acting in the public interest that they're at a point of no return. And they are digging into the pockets of regular working people, in widespread fraud with mutual funds and pensions. Like many people, I lost two thirds of my 401k in 2001. Look at what Eliot Spitzer has been doing and how much of a success it's been. With corruption so obvious, things must naturally cycle back to it being an advantage for corporations to abide by the law, to stop double- and triple-dipping and cooking the books and rigging the system.
The new face of the Democratic Party should be an honest and accountable one. Forsaking corporate donors is the best way to do this and to infuse energy into the base. And then to convince the public that the corporations and the party in power are acting directly against their interest -- seems painfully obvious to me, but has been overlooked or ignored by the voters. Integrity or the appearance of same is still what people will say is important to them, and part of the success the Republicans enjoyed when they accused Kerry of being capricious, however baseless the charge. And being more out of power than ever makes this radical change easier to pull off, too. The Republicans are trying to gain total control of corporate donations and lobbyists. Many corporate donors are no longer splitting their donations 50-50 between the parties. There's no better time than now. What is there left to lose? I will guarantee my support to the extent allowed by law, if the party does this.
You say it cannot be done. I believe it must be.