Although the 2012
elections are still over 15 months away, candidates for the two major
capitalist parties had raised more than $100 million combined in
campaign funds as of the end of June. The Obama campaign and the
Democratic Party are responsible for a record breaking $86 million,
while Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney has raised over $18 million.
In comparison,
George Bush’s re-election campaign had only $35 million at this
stage in 2003. The economic crisis that has served as a pretext to
slash social services apparently has not deprived wealthy donors from
millions in disposable income to purchase political influence.
The enormous sums
of money raised at such an early stage by both Democrats and
Republicans illustrates how hollow the notion of capitalist
“democracy” is. Though the attention given to election campaigns
can be an important opportunity to raise socialist demands,
capitalist elections cannot bring fundamental change. The decisive
arena of struggle for poor and working people is the streets.
