Ari has got the goods. Only the Rich select your president (and Congress):

The Millionaires' Primary
Ari Melber

Voters are bracing for the longest and most expensive presidential race in American history. The 2008 campaign will last two years and top $1 billion, and most candidates plan to cover the rising costs by ditching public financing so they can sidestep spending limits. For the first time since Watergate, private donors will likely supplant public funding for the entire election. That means America's most expensive campaign may also be its least accountable, with a small group of multimillionaires exerting huge influence over which candidates are allowed near the White House. Think Jack Abramoff on steroids.

"It's money, and only money, that is the reason we're leaving today," said Tom Vilsack, when he announced last month that he was the first candidate to drop out of a presidential race that had barely begun. As a two-term governor from the pivotal state of Iowa, Vilsack might have been a viable candidate, but he could not raise the money required for today's campaign. Vilsack's fundraising was dwarfed by early frontrunners such as Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Clinton has announced she will forego public financing for the primary and general election so she can raise unlimited cash.

Can you say AIPAC anyone? Or how about "Northrop Grumman?" Those are the folks who back the candidates you "choose" more than 10,000 ActBlues or BlogPACs ever will. Isn't it nice to know that your candidates already know what's important, and that it in no way has anything to do with your or your interests and issues?

To save the public financing system, Senator Russ Feingold has introduced legislation to raise spending caps, provide public financing six months earlier in the race and quadruple the matching funds for participating candidates. "The American people do not want to see a return to the pre-Watergate days of unlimited spending on presidential elections and candidates entirely beholden to private donors," Feingold said when he introduced the Presidential Funding Act of 2007.

Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, a group that fights big money in politics, argues that without reform, campaigns are headed for an "extraordinary unlimited spending arms race" that will allow influence-peddling that the country has not "seen since the Watergate scandals." Democracy 21 is endorsing Feingold's bill and asking all the presidential candidates to support it. The only candidate who has signed on so far is Senator Barack Obama, who has also promised to voluntarily follow the spending caps if the Republican nominee will do the same. Senator John McCain just made a similar pledge.

Common Cause, a nonpartisan government accountability organization, also is backing Feingold's bill. "People elected to office in our country from President to state legislator should not be beholden to the donors," Common Cause spokesperson Mary Boyle told The Nation. She also said their 300,000 members will press presidential candidates to support public financing for all federal elections.

Of course, there is no is way to know whether the new Congress will act on Feingold's bill. Skeptics note that most campaign finance proposals face an uphill battle in Congress because incumbents want to protect the system that put them in power. Conservative opponents argue that reforms are futile because money always finds a way into the process. Bradley A. Smith, the former Republican Chairman of the Federal Election Commission, once wrote that campaign finance reform simply "never works."

I wept, like a little girl, to hear that Russ dropped out. But I was not surprised...who would fund his candidacy for the office of President, other than poor black women like me? I'd rather have a "money grubbing Jew" like Russ than a public financing dissing Black man like Obama be president. But what do I know? Clearly, I don't "get how it works" in Washington.

I have said it and said it: this will only change because people, little people like you and me, force change. Politicians aren't really allowed to speak frankly and plainly about the money race. We call the press "whores," but in truth, even progressives who make it inside the Beltway are forced to turn tricks for the wealthy.

I went to Webb's victory party, shortly after the election. It was telling: hundreds of people like me, who had gone out into the field and knocked on doors and handed out flyers, rustling up actual voters to make that razor-thin victory margin of his possible. But where was Webb that night, for the most part? In the basement of the building, in a special session, for those who brought $1,000 or more checks with them. I understood then, as I have before, what truly matters to the elect.

Constitutional amendment. Nothing else will solve this problem. Such an amendment can begin with the people, people like Granny D. If you are bored and looking for something to do, this is it. Because I promise you, even progressive Democrats won't be allowed.