Josh Green has a fascinating read in the June Atlantic on the money machine helmed by Barack Obama. Here's the thesis:
Obama is a gifted politician by anyone's measure, but what distinguishes him from earlier insurgents is his ability to fully harness the excitement that his candidacy has created, in votes and in dollars. Three forces had to come together for this to happen: the effect of campaign-finance laws in broadening the number and types of people who fund the political process; the emergence of Northern California as one of the biggest sources of Democratic money; and the recognition by a few Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and venture capitalists that the technology and business practices they had developed in their day jobs could have a transformative effect on national politics.
The piece speaks to a looming question in Democratic politics: should Obama win, will power in the party reside with him personally, with the Silicon Valley tycoons who helped make it happen, or with the millions of people he harnessed (like Dean did before him) to raise nearly a quarter billion dollars? And as Green points out, the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform legislation, rather than crippling Democrats, has liberated them, allowing for an entirely new approach to campaigning.
--Mori Dinauer
