Like I've Said, Money Won't Cut It

Most of the first quarter fundraising figures are out among the Democratic contenders (except from Obama's camp and even that is estimated at around $21 million), and it seems Hillary, while setting a new record, has been unable to shake off her major competitors.

That's good in my book. I hate to see the democratic process bought and paid for in either party. In any case, as was proved in the last couple of election cycles, early money doesn't guarantee anything, at least in the primaries. Sure, Bush had all the big money behind him and ended up winning the election (barely), but something tells me the American public has had it up to here with big money's attempts to ram candidates down their throats. What is truly encouraging about the results of this 1st quarter fundraising effort is that so much of the money came from small donors ($100 or less). There also appears to be, in the manner of Dean's candidacy last time, real grass roots efforts in several of the campaigns when it comes to fundraising and spreading the word about their candidate. The more we can see of that, and the less we see of these big million-dollar fundraising events, the better off our electoral process will be.