I'm gonna keep this one short and sweet, because maybe it's just me who's the idiot. But hear me out.
It's no secret that big-money donors pay for access, and I've see a couple of references to this WaPo article about Max Baucus at a high-dollar fundraiser:
At the table [with Baucus] on May 26 were about 20 donors willing to fork over $10,000 or more to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, including executives of major insurance companies, hospitals and other health-care firms.
"Most people there had an agenda; they wanted the ear of a senator, and they got it," said Aaron Roland, a San Francisco health-care activist who paid half price to attend the gathering. "Money gets you in the door. The only thing the other side can do is march around and protest outside."
Why wasn't I at that table-- or better yet, someone like nyceve? We've got the money, in aggregate. Follow me over the jump.
Say what you will about bottom-feeding insurance industry insiders, they didn't get where they are by being stupid. (They got where they are by slitting their mother's throat for a quarter and they went downhill from there, in my opinion, but that's another diary.) If they're going to give somebody 10 grand in soft money, that somebody is damned well going to have to listen to their agenda.
This is where being stupid comes in. See, when I give money, I'm stupid about it. I just go to a candidate's website, plunk down 50 bucks and back meekly away. I don't ask for anything in return. They get my cash and they never even have to look at my ugly face, much less listen to my stupid, uninsured, non-millionaire concerns.
I think it was my mama (or somebody's mama, anyway) who said, "Why buy the cow if you're getting the milk for free?" The insurance sharks get face time for their money, we get nothing.
So why aren't we bundling our contributions into $1000, $5000, or $10,000 chunks-- whatever a literal seat at the table is going for these days-- and forking it over contingent on sending one of our own to one of these gold-plated fundraisers, rather than giving it with no strings attached? I'm sure that we've given enough cash in the aggregate that we could have had nyceve and slinkerwink at that table, with enough money left over to send someone ridiculous like Carrot Top too, just to piss everyone off.
Somebody tell me why this is a stupid idea.