My regular reader (Hi Jeff!) will recall that I was the Democratic candidate for the US Congress in the Colorado district around Colorado Springs back in 2008. It was an amazing experience, filled with remarkable people, wonderful experiences, and the mind-numbing, soul-sucking, hour after hour spent on the phone begging strangers for money. If there is one thing that is actually common to all candidates, from the farthest right to the farthest left, it is a loathing of what is called “dialing for dollars.” I spent up to eight hours per day on the phone calling people and trying to convince them to support my very long-shot campaign in this heavily GOP area. If you want to be humbled, call 100 people a day and beg for cash. It is a most foul way to spend your time.

Which, of course, brings me to Colorado U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet…

Full disclosure: I worked for Bennet (mostly doing military and veteran casework) for four years, and I think he is a terrific senator. I am admittedly biased, but I think his record speaks for itself. Bennet was what the Founding Fathers had in mind: a citizen working for the betterment of society (in Bennet’s case, as superintendent of the Denver Public Schools) when he was appointed (and not at his request) to the US Senate, filling the vacancy created when President Obama named then-Colorado U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar to his Cabinet. He has since won re-election on his own and, as reported in a recent Colorado Politics story, is now starting to kick off his campaign for another term starting in 2022.

So having told you how much I admire Bennet, let me also now tell you why Bennet also symbolizes what is the very worst of our political system (didn’t see that one coming, did ya?).

Unless you are fabulously wealthy, you need to raise buckets full of money for your campaign. Perhaps you recall the name Herb Kohl (of the Kohl’s department store chain) who, when he ran for the Senate from Wisconsin, just paid for everything himself. He didn’t take a dime in campaign contributions, and just wrote personal checks to cover all the expenses (this would be an even better story if Kohl had proved to be an effective and meaningful senator like Bennet, but he wasn’t, but at least he did self-fund). Bennet, while highly successful in the private sector, has nowhere near the wealth required to self-fund. Heck, remember alleged billionaire Trump claimed he was going to personally fund his campaign? Spoiler: he didn’t.

So how the heck does a great guy like Bennet get tagged with being a symbol of what’s the worst in our political system? Well, it is because he, like all the other electeds, is trapped in a system not of his own making, wherein any candidate needs to raise ridiculous amounts of money to fund TV ads, mailers, phone banks, and all the other details that make up a successful campaign. 

Let’s look at Colorado’s most recent campaign, shall we?

In the 2020 election, John Hickenlooper turned a red seat blue when he defeated then-U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner. How did he do it? By working very hard, speaking earnestly from the heart, and oh, by raising and spending $41 million. The political prognosticators are saying that Bennet has a much easier road to electoral victory than Hick did and may not have to raise that much money. But let us just say, for the sake of argument, that Bennet only needs to raise half that much. Seems more reasonable, right? 

Well, let’s break down what that really means: From the very first day of his brand-spanking new term in the Senate, Bennet must raise just under $10,000 per day, 7 days a week, 365 days per year. That, dear readers, is absolutely nuts. 

Election campaigns have become so stunningly expensive, at every level of federal campaigns, that even remarkably dedicated public servants like Bennet must spend hours and hours and hours on the phone, raising money for a seemingly distant reelection campaign. Having had access, as a staffer, to Bennet’s calendar, I can attest that he does not shirk his public duties at all. Rather, he would spend what most of us would call “time off” working hard to support his future campaign. This is yet another reason I count Bennet as a superb senator, but I digress…

So, in Michael Bennet you have the very best in a senator, but you also have the ugly reality that he must spend ridiculous amounts of time dialing for dollars. There are other countries that partially or near-fully fund elections from public funds, based on the idea that no elected official should believe they “owe” anything to a donor. 

Could the U.S. try this? Well, we have tried a bit of it at the presidential level (remember that check box on your tax return to kick in $3 for the presidential campaign?), and it hasn’t worked. Even a pot of nearly $300 million in matching funds has been untouched by any candidate in recent campaigns because — get this — it is far too little to wage an effective campaign. We are now in the billion-dollar campaign era for president, and the Senate and House are trying very hard to keep up. 

We in Colorado got lucky when a hardworking public servant named Bennet got pulled into politics. But now even he needs to dial for dollars at an absurd level. We could fix this with fully funded campaigns for federal offices, but I suspect that isn’t going to happen any time soon. So, for now, enjoy the relative quiet, as your phone hasn’t really started ringing yet from candidates running in 2022. 

But that lull is nearly over.