We all need to stop complaining about either Kerry or Edwards ties to special interests. There don't come close to Bush and are far far far back in funds.
In an ideal world, financing would not matter but we're up against a beast and need to beat him. So we should stop beating up on each other with attacks on special interest ties. Kerry and Edwards have both run honest campaigns and will face a well-funded, aggressively vicious competitor in the general.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60693-2004Feb21.htmlNew campaign finance reports show that the two leading candidates for the Democratic nomination were barely solvent at the end of January heading into a prospective $50 million-plus ad blitz by President Bush.
Bush ended January with $104.4 million in the bank, nearly 100 times as much as the net balances of Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), the Democratic front-runner, and Sen. John Edwards (N.C.), Kerry's leading challenger for the nomination.
"We will never catch up," said Michael Meehan, Kerry's spokesman, noting that so far in February, Kerry had raised $5 million.
Bush is gearing up to weaken the Democratic nominee well before the general election campaign starts, using a tactic that proved highly effective for President Bill Clinton in 1996.