Picking A Candidate

The emails are coming fast and furious now.

A small group of tech execs are meeting with Obama. Bring $2100

Get on the Hillary bus while its still taking passengers.

Bill Richardson wants to meet with you.

John Edwards is coming to town and we are putting together a lunch.

I find the whole thing so distasteful. Raising money and giving money to political candidates is something the Gotham Gal and I have done for about ten years. We’ve never been bigshots. But when we get behind someone like we did with Claire and Sherrod last spring, we can help and we enjoy it.

But this 2008 election cycle is sick and getting sicker. I read somewhere that Hillary will raise and spend $500mm running for president this cycle (that is if she’s the nominee, it would be less if she loses in the primaries). That’s $750,000 per day to be raised and spent over the next 22 months.

Does anyone else think that is nuts? How exactly does someone raise $750,000 per day?

We talked it over this week as we were getting inundated with the invites. The Gotham Gal says we should sit this one out unless Bloomberg runs (he’s already got the $500mm in his bank account). I’d love it if Mike did run. He’s been the best Mayor New York City has had since I moved here in the early 80s. But what’s the chance that happens?

I see that Steven Speilberg is doing fundraisers for Edwards, Obama, and Clinton. Hedging his bets I guess. That’s smart politically but not something we want to do. We want to find someone to get behind.

We want to find someone who will shake the national scene up the way Spitzer is shaking up the NY scene. A reformer. A blogger would be great. A person whose name isn’t Bush or Clinton.

Haven’t found it yet. Probably won’t.

UPDATE: Frank Rich has an excellent discussion of Hillary’s struggle with the Iraq issue in today’s New York Times (subscription required – ugh).

#Politics