If you think that the ugliness of money in politics is an everyday occurrence, you might want to be downstream from the candidates in the week before the end of the calendar quarter. We’re talking about March 31, June 30, September 30 and December 31. Political pundits become donation hedgers, handicapping races in large part based on the donations that the candidates get for each quarter. These are the numbers that the candidates submit to the Federal Elections Commission by the 15^th of the following month.

The e-mails from the candidates are bad enough – especially with their sounds of desperation, like a child buried in a cave, screaming at me, as if I am the only person in the world who can save him or her. I wonder how some of these politicians could ramp up their rhetoric if they ever had a real emergency. Would they say, “I’ve been crying ‘wolf’ to you since you’ve known me, but now I have a real emergency?” Would I believe them?

But then there are the phone calls. Those who know you want to ensure you that you are still their B.F.F.s. Those who don’t know you pretend that you are the person who they have been longing to meet.

There is a lot that’s artificial about politics. A recent survey by Civitas showed that less than 4% of the American people believe that politicians are performing their job at a level of ‘5’ on a ‘1’ to ‘5’ scale [‘5’ being the highest]. My hunch is that most of these people have never been directly solicited for campaign contribution. If they had, the politicians likely would have ranked even lower.

In a capitalist economy, we are always asked to open our wallets and spend. Occasionally, advertising helps us find a product that we really want, and the message clarifies what we actually want to purchase. But most of the time we are being implored to buy something that we neither need nor want. Advertising works; if it didn’t, we wouldn’t have to see it wall-to-wall each day.

But no other form of solicitation for our money is as blatantly shameful as the candidates begging for dollars, particularly at the end of the quarter. Are people who are trying to make ends meet, or simply wisely budget their money, supposed to say, “Oh, this is just what I was waiting for; for a politician to ask med to help them meet their quarterly goal.”

Much is written about the damage that big money does to politics, particularly when it is “dark.”  This is all true. But in a different way, the begging of money from small donors is equally insidious.

he only way to have clean campaigns is for them to be publicly funded. We need to put an end to the dialing for dollars and the shame that it brings to both the candidates and the voters.

There are those who run for office in order to gain power or a financial advantage. The system may be comfortable for them. There are other politicians who truly think about the common good and they are forced to hold their noses and dial. But the biggest travesty is how the system eliminates many introverts from running; people who are very cautious in social interactions and rarely ask for something outside of normal social norms. They may be the most sensitive among us to what is the real common good.

So, between now and this Saturday, I urge voters to say ‘no’ to politicians soliciting the end of quarter donations. If you have to give, hold off. If the quarterly reporting is so important to your candidate that he or she must ramp up the begging, then he or she may not be the best person for the office.

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The lack of a comprehensive, government-provided safety net in America means that non-profits have to resort to bragging and begging to provide many basic services. The political season crystallizes this issue better than anything, but in a society with as much capitalism as America, it’s apparent almost everywhere.

You might think that bragging and begging are opposites, but they have a symbiotic relationship. Just look at the pitch from virtually any politician. First they tell you how great they are; then they want your money. Some are so brazen that they forget to brag; they just beg for the money.

The United States leans much more towards capitalism on the socialist – capitalist spectrum.

Non-profit organizations play a very large role in trying to fill the gaps in what government does not provide, everything from feeding the hungry to making available basic health care services for women. Because non-profits do not have the power of taxation, they are forced to raise most of their money through donations. Very few contributions come unsolicited, so this means that by default, non-profits need to ask.

The world of soliciting donations among non-profits is extremely competitive. Citizens who have the means to contribute must ask themselves questions such as, “Should I give to the food pantry or to the art museum or the symphony? Should I give to a local hospital or to a national organization seeking a cure to cancer?” Where political questions are involved, one might ask, “should I give to an organization that supports my views on reproductive choice, or should I give to a candidate of my choice?”

In some countries, most or all of these goods and services are paid by the government. For instance, in Norway, two-thirds of revenues of political parties comes from the government. In the United States, the fabric of the safety net is woven so loosely that individuals would be left to starve to death if it were not for the work of food pantries. In times of economic hardship, donations to food banks diminish, and they cannot meet the demand. This happens despite the best efforts of food pantries to appeal to the kindness, the generosity, and the concern of the American people.

Food banks or shelters for the homeless can go wanting while colleges and universities with endowments in the billions are hauling in more largesse from citizens than ever.

This is where the bragging is most apparent. Colleges and universities as well as other large charitable organizations such as hospitals or the American Red Cross spend tens of millions of dollars to shout out the message of their accomplishments. Whether their successes are real or imagined does not matter, they have a story to tell and the better they tell it, the more money they will take in.

It’s a two-step process. As the non-profits are touting their accomplishments, they are actively engaged in seeking more money for their coffers. We have to ask why, in a country that spends far more on health care than any other country, hospitals are constantly asking for more money. Before they can come begging, they have to arm themselves with the fanciest of brochures, television advertisements, and invitations to galas where they rake in money like a political candidate.

Not only does the United States provide less in necessary social services to citizens than most other industrialized nations, but we have what must be the largest Venn Diagram of the brag-osphere and beg-osphere. What does it say about the pleasantness of our society when we are saturated with so much bragging and begging? While it’s unfair to expect that an individual or organization will never engage in bragging or begging, we clearly have it in excess.

It is the currency of so much of our realm. It would be inappropriate for me to ask organizations to unilaterally “cease and desist.” However, it’s important that we are aware of how our culture is so tainted by the phenomenon.

If we look on the political spectrum, we find that once again it is Republicans who bear the greatest measure of responsibility for the situation in which we find ourselves. If the federal government was empowered to cover the basic needs of all individual citizens in the country, there would be far less bragging and begging. All of this is just one more reason why our society requires fundamental and structural change. We are fortunate that progressives are trying to move us in a direction of more justice and less blathering.

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