James Oliphant of National Journal asks, “Why Won’t Democrats Talk About Obama’s Fundraising?”

Good for him for asking, and there’s a lot of reporting in his article, but the answer is pretty simple. Acknowledging that Obama “headlined a $100,000-a-plate fundraiser at the swank Jefferson Hotel in downtown Washington on behalf of the Democratic Party’s Senate campaign arm” disrupts the narrative of a plucky, underfunded group of noble community activists taking on the little guy in the top hat from the “Monopoly” game.

Professional Democrats — officeholders and their staff — rely on these big-dollar fundraisers for their livelihood. The non-professional Democrats care about the issue of campaign finance only when it can be used to reinforce the belief that their GOP opponents are rich, powerful, corrupt and selfish. They don’t care about Mike Bloomberg spending his fortune to promote gun control or Tom Steyer spending his fortune to promote climate-change causes. It’s only the other guy’s big money that is corrupting.

And the Holy Grail of our public policy debates is “a clean narrative.”