Obama is addressing reporters now, and arguing that his method of funding his campaign is different because he can turn down any donor who wanted to tie his donation to a particular policy stance, proposal, or decision.

1) If any donor explicitly tied their donation to a policy stance, wouldn’t that be bribery?

2) The maximum donation from any one donor at the presidential level is $2,300, and most campaigns spend millions. Couldn’t any candidate turn down the policy views of any single donor? Is there any candidate who has ever been so dependent on one donor (besides self-funded candidates) that they could not compete without the support of that one donor?

3) I don’t think candidates are automatically “corrupted” when they take a donation. But isn’t the concern not that they’ll become “corrupted” from a contribution from one donor than by, say, millions of dollars coming from employees of entire industry? For example, in the most recent numbers on OpenSecrets.org, employees of commercial banks have donated $1.6 million to Barack Obama, $1.2 million to John McCain. Employees of “Health Services/HMOs” have donated $533,471 to Obama, $173,500 to McCain.

Employees of “hedge funds and private equity” firms have donated $1.6 million to Obama, $853,840 to McCain; “securities and investment” employees have donated $7.9 million to Obama, $4.4 million to McCain. Employees of the real estate industry donated $4.9 million to Obama, $3.9 million to McCain. Employees of “pharmaceutical/health products” donated $700,822 to Obama, $226,800 to McCain.

Then again, we know Obama didn’t think much of his large donors anyway…