Neil McCarthy: Blago and Me: "We live in a country where it costs, at a minimum, $500,000 to run for a seat in the House of Representatives. If the district is anywhere near a major media market, the cost rises into the multi-millions of dollars. If one wants to run for statewide office in a place like Illinois (or a dozen other big states like New York or California), the cost is in the tens of millions of dollars. If you win, more than half your time while in office must be spent raising money for the reelection.
Over time, this lunacy has produced three sorts of candidates and public servants.
The really rich.
The really famous.
And the really stretched."
The chances of any ordinary upstanding Joe -- even a very talented ordinary upstanding Joe who becomes, say, a Rhodes Scholar -- climbing this greasy pole have become exceedingly slim. For every Obama who works a miracle, there are dozens stymied in a lost Congressional district or a City Council seat from which they will never rise. And even the City Councilmen (and women) are spending all their time raising money in the hopes that lightning may strike.
(Via Huffington Blog.)
