The OP is saying speaking for myself and many people I personally know (depends on which political environement you surrounded by), we do think we see through the man, thank you but speak for yourself...

Statistics, juggling with numbers and figures are notoriously unreliable and easy to manipulate.

The post by PHC above does not give an accurate account of the content of the two sites he mentioned above relating to Oama's fundraising profile. It's partisan. Don't take my word for it go and look for yourselves.

89% of Obama's money came from individuals, so what? What's significant about this figure? Apart from the fact that 89% sounds like a really big percentage. But what does it really mean? An idividual that gives a hundred dollars isn't the same as an individual that give $100,000 dollars or a $1,000,000.

The point is, this figure of 89% to the untrained mind, in relation to statistics, gives the impression that 89% of Obama's campaign money came from small donations, from ordinary people, from a movement, not from super-rich people or Wallstreet. That somehow Obama isn't beholden to anyone. That he is different. He raised lots of money, but he didn't raise more as proportion from ordinary people than McCain or other candidates usually do.

It's correct to say that the system is rigged. It is rigged in favour of the established twin parties and is definitely biased against small parties. If the US system is so transparently fair and democractic, why are there so few parties represented in Congress? Just two. Two, decade after decade. Century after century. Isn't such a system even a little suspect? If this system existe in any other country apart from the United States, it would be condemned as profoundly undemocratic. In a democracy there has to be a realistic possiblity of changing the system by voting for a realistic alternative. This possibility doesn't really, if one is honest, exist in the United Sates. The twin party has a stranglehold on the polical system. The twin party does everything in its power, apart from an outright ban, to lock third party candidates out of the democratic system. This, unfortunately, is the reality.

Sorry in adavance.

In theory, in a perfect world where there was balance and fariness and equal opportunities for all, and all political parties, campaigning on a level playing field, with equal access and treatment by the media, democracy could exist and the people would have a real choice and vote as they chose.

This isn't the system that exists in the real world, in the United States, in practice, in reality. In the United States two powerful and similar parties dominate totally and have done forever. The only way a small or third party stand a realistic chance is to have access to hundreds of millions of dollars so it can buy airtime and buy its way into the media, get noticed and get votes. The key word her is "buy" and remember this is supposed to be a democracy where votes count.

Evidence. Don't be fooled. Don't look at Nadar or some tiny communist revolutionary Marxist league. They don't really matter. They don't show how the system functions. Instead look at someone like the billionaire maveric third candidates like Peroit and the others. They spent their own money, a lot of it, in an attempt to break the stranglehold of the twin party system, and they were reasonably successful, not because of their politics, but because of the money, the dollars they had at their disposal. One needs money to buy oneself airtime and access, so that people can hear what one has to say, then one has a chance at least, but without money, forget it. One's success in the democratic process is directly proportional to the amount of dollars one has in one's war-chest. Sad, but true.

Finally, Obama's money didn't come overwhelmingly from lot of little people, only about half did. Most came from Wallstreet that dumped the Republicans this time and shifted towards Obama. It was simply time for a change and a facelift for the brand, brand America.

a.m.r.

I have such difficulty accepting that you really believe the things you say, do you? I simply can't reconcile it with objective reality. One cannot believe, as an adult, in a formalistic version of how the American political system works that is so primative, simplistic and detached from reality. It's not even highschool level civics. I doubt one can find a single American who believes this kindergarten version of how the American electoral system works. It's so simple and so wrong.

The point is, why are some parties small and some big? Is it really only about politics and support? Why? As everything else can be bought and sold in the American market system why not politics too and influence? Is politics really the determining factor? How many Americans even know what the communists, for example, stand for? The answer? Harldly anyone knows the political platform of the tiny American communist party.

Money is the determining factor in American elections, everyone knows this. The more more money a party has the more votes they get. This is me simplifying a bit, but this is basically how the system works in practice. To deny this requires one to refuse to see reality in the face and prefer to look instead at a crude and ridiculous facsimile of reality framed purely by ideology. But then for some people ideology trumps everything, everytime, even reality when it's staring them in the face. Money rules, ok?

Writeon - I believe it was my hero, the wonderful John Pilger, who described this "sham" in one word "murdochracy" i.e. democracies in which "informed one-man-one-vote" is perverted by by huge media conglomerates (see John Pilger's "Blair's Legacy: From Liberalism to Murdochracy": http://www.lewrockwell.com/pilger/pilger57.html ).

Of course others have followed suit e.g. see "Western Murdochracy Mainstream Media IGNORE real 9-11 atrocity - 9-11 million deaths in the Bush Wars ": http://gideon.sulekha.com/blog/post/2008/09/western-murdochracy-mainstre... and "Western Murdochracy Denial & Google Censorship of British Indian Holocaust & Churchill’s Crimes ": http://bellaciao.org/en/spip.php?article17801 .