Reply #19: Yea I know all about Open Secrets. And you are radically misinterpreting what that list means.

[phleshdef]

If you work as a gas station attendant for BP, guess what that means? If you make a contribution to Obama, suddenly his records show that he got another contribution from BP.

My developer friends that work for Microsoft, same deal, their contributions get counted as a contribution for Microsoft.

And Americans living paycheck to paycheck can't afford it, you are right. And no one is trying to make them pay it. Its voluntary, as you well know. But we have, what, 350 million people in this country right now? Only a small fraction of that still need to make contributions in order for it to add up to a lot of money. Not everyone is poor. Most people actually aren't. That doesn't make the level of poverty any more acceptible. Its not. That doesn't change the fact that most people aren't poor and if a sizeable fraction of all citizens decide to contribute money to a candidate, that candidate can and will end up with a lot of money. End of story.

Your entire analysis here denies proper perspective.