Bill Puts It on Spin Cycle

Former President Bill Clinton will speak on health issues to a spinning exercise class in Manhattan on Thursday night. It's a fundraiser for his wife's presidential campaign and each participant will pay $2300 for an evening that will include Clinton's presentation, a forty-five minute workout, and "cocktails and appetizers."

It's certainly creative as campaign fundraising schemes go. And it's all part of the Hillary Clinton campaign's aim of raising between $20 and $30-million in the first three months of this year!

Not only have campaigns gotten too long, there's entirely too much money thrown around in the whole process. The Clintons probably raise so much money, in fact, that they're be less susceptible to the pressures for favors brought to bear by their contributors...though perhaps more so to those who run and sponsor their massive fundraising events. But, generally speaking, big givers, whether to Republican or Democratic candidates, aren't donating to candidates' coffers because of deeply-held principles. They're buying access.

But who's going to give access to all the millions of Americans who can't afford to ante up as candidates for both parties' nominations rev up their respective fundraising machines?

Interestingly, most politicians I know hate the campaign fundraising rat race. "I think of all the charities that could be helped with all the dollars I have to raise just to stay competitive and it makes me sick," one told me several years ago.

What's the cure for this wretched excess? I don't know. But I'm sure that the current campaign influence-peddling (pedaling?) system won't improve until all of us are sufficiently sickened by it!

[This has been cross-posted at RedBlueChristian.com.]