McAuliffe out-raises Cuccinelli while the governorship remains just as elusive to the average Virginian

Virginia’s Democratic Party candidate for governor, Terry McAuliffe, is known for his distinctive ability to make money as a private citizen, but fundraising figures released on Monday evening also show McAuliffe’s ability to raise money for his own political campaign.

Over the entire year, in fact, McAuliffe has held a fundraising advantage over his challenger, Ken Cuccinelli, the latter of which has raised $2.2 million since the beginning of 2013.

But what’s often left out of discussions surrounding campaign fundraising figures is the ridiculous amount of money it takes to run an effective campaign for Virginia’s governorship or for a seat in the U.S. Congress.

The issue of the amount of money it takes to run an effective political campaign for almost any state or federal elected office brings together two American ideas that have been at odds since the founding of the United States: the right and ability of any U.S. citizen to run for public office and free market capitalism.

While, theoretically, any U.S. citizen who hasn’t lost his or her right to do so can run for public office, in a time and place where campaigns at the state and federal levels can surge upwards into the millions of dollars, it isn’t practical to conclude that any eligible U.S. citizen can run for public office. And by run, I mean, have at least a fair shot at winning.

And then there’s the free market, a market which allows campaigns for public office to run into the hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars. Yet, the free market is as American as apple pie (I never quite understood this analogy; has it been proven?!). But the free market can and sometimes does restrict the average American from having a fair shot at winning public office.

At present, we’ve chosen the market over the ability of any eligible U.S. citizen to have a fair shot at winning public office. And in so doing, the aristocratic sheaths that were gradually stripped away from the original American fabric have re-grown in a semi-familiar guise under a new class of aristocratic Americans.   

For all of their rhetoric to the contrary, neither Terry McAuliffe or Ken Cuccinelli are the average American. In their own ways, they are part of the new aristocratic class in America that will not or cannot see past their own ambitions to a Virginia that wisely utilizes its wealth instead of squandering it.