With all the controversy over the Olympic torch coming to town, who knew Obama paid us a visit and vacuumed up some serious dough at the Getty mansion?

I've cross-posted this diary to my blog, with a few photos from the event.

Right now, the nomination is all about the 2 "Big Mo's" -- momentum and money.  As BooMan has pointed out, the upcoming primary schedule is favorable to Obama, meaning that he should pick up some momentum in the coming month.

And as tsackton has pointed out, Clinton is starting to self-finance, meaning that she is in some serious financial trouble.  Money is going to make a big difference in the coming months, as it will determine whether a candidate can make significant ad buys in the primary and caucus states, and can pay for needed staff in all of these states.  As shown in Iowa, when Obama has a chance to put his ads on television and to finance a major organizing effort, he does quite well.  

(Take the poll after the jump)
 

Thanks for the information that was posted about Election Law on the home page Wednesday. VOICE (Voter-Owned Iowa Clean Elections) is one of the pieces of legislation mentioned in the post - it has been weaving it's way through the Iowa legislature, passing out of both the Senate and House State Government committees, the Senate Appropriations sub-committee and expected to come out of the House sub-committee today. But we've run into a snag; the Democratic leadership is trying to kill the bill before it comes to the floor for a vote. On Wednesday, a group of fellow activists traveled to Des Moines to lobby on VOICE. No one expected they would have the F-bomb dropped on their heads. According to those who were there here's what happened:

With the Democratic party running the Legislative Branch, the public financing of elections ought to be implemented immediately. If the government is truly serious about campaign finance reform, public financing is truly the only policy solution - everything else is merely a fig leaf meant to make politicians look courageous all the while allowing them to continue participating in the current regime of legalized bribery.

Those living in poverty are not represented by their own government. In the 2004 presidential election, Congressman Dennis Kucinich called poverty a, "weapon of mass destruction," because of the suffering it causes many Americans. Though poverty is a credible threat to millions of Americans, those in the halls of government tend to sweep it under the rug. Many in the government, especially the 45 percent of those in the Senate who are literally billionaires, do not represent the poor or middle class American. Charles Lewis points out that from 1976 to 2000, the presidential candidate with the most money won the election, much of their campaign financed by their own money. Even after Hurricane Katrina, a poll conducted by New American Media found that the American people felt that eliminating poverty should be America's one priority. To the majority of Americans, it was a higher priority than the `war on terrorism' and a much higher priority than bringing `democracy' to Iraq.

There is no creditability in the Bush Administration's contention that we really want to impose democracy on other nations. Yet promoting democracy is the public justification for our foreign intervention.  It sounds so much nicer than saying we're going to risk the lives of our young people and massively tax our citizens to secure the giant oil reserves in Iraq for the benefit of our Republican supporters and friends.

Yes, it's true, our greenwashed governor isn't even waiting until after November to demonstrate that his "green" photo op in August was first and foremost a campaign event.

CA Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez, sponsor of the global warming bill that Schwarzenegger signed to international fanfare, appears to be shocked by the governor's George-Bush-like behavior. He told the SF Chronicle:

"You can't rewrite a law through executive order.... This is totally inconsistent with the intent of the law and with the way that it is written."

Ummm, yeah. Speaker Núñez, that used to be true; perhaps you weren't aware of the Bush administration's record of using "signing statements" to disregard laws they don't like, but don't want to veto for political reasons? Too bad you didn't figure out the truth about Schwarzenegger's continuing agenda to consolidate power in the Executive Branch before you helped him take a big lead in this election back in August by giving his handlers the "truthiness" they needed to portray him as "green" and "bipartisan."

more from "Núñez slams governor on emission law" below the fold.

The California Nurses Union, sponsor of Prop. 89, the Clean Money ballot initiative, has just released a jammin' new music video, "About Time for 89"

http://www.cleanmoneyelections.org/...

Prop. 89 webmaster Colette Washington rocks to a soulful hiphop beat, with a powerful smokey voice and lyrics that cut to the chase:

Political corruption is on the rise
Donations are comin' in super-size
Californians need a little bit of love
But we can't get in to the "Big Boys Club"

A handheld camera shows the kind of enthusiastic crowds of Californians that defeated Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's special election power grab last year.

Why do we need Prop. 89? More on the flip

As a long time Democratic activist, I have a confession.  I don't believe my Party can do any better than the current Republican machine.  I've come to this over time starting with my first job out of college in the 1980s as a Congressional aide on Capitol Hill.  You see, I had believed all the rhetoric to be true.  When my Party's leadership said they wanted to improve the plight of working people, I believed them.  When they said they wanted to improve access to education, I was with them big time.  I even thought they were sincere when they talked about reforming our political process, eliminating the influence of big money and fat cat backroom deals.  But boy have I been proved wrong.

We are Screwed
We can argue (and do) about what our government should do to address this issue or that problem.  I don't want to get into any of those particulars because, given the fact that our government has been bought and paid for by corporate America and the super-wealthy elite, the only way our governmental representatives respond to us at all anymore is to manipulate us into doing their will (which is usually to put their sorry asses back in office).  The will of the American people is the last thing on the agenda.  

We can support progressive candidates all we want, we can take back the house, the senate, and the white house, and it won't matter one bit.  This is because, sad to say, the democrats have become corrupted by Big Money too.  We can elect fresh, untainted, altruistic souls and they will be more or less instantly corrupted by Big Money as soon as they show up in DC.

How We are Screwed
Our government no longer works for us.