I hate it when politicians beg for money. I don’t want to do it. Unfortunately, money wins elections. If you’ve paid your taxes, you’ve already made a contribution to my opponent, since he’s triple dipping at the public funds well.
Furthermore, since my opponent has been in office for pretty much the entire century, he has name recognition. I have to pay to advertise to get my name out.
To paraphrase an old saying, all that needs to happen for political corruption to prevail is for good people to contribute nothing.
