Don't you hate it — kuh-ching! — when you’re trying to write a lede for your — kuh-ching! — opinion article, but all you can hear — kuh-ching! — is the sound of money being thrown around everywhere?

KUH-CHING!So do I.

Unfortunately, though, this type of constant interruption is exactly what's plaguing the current presidential race. Campaign contributions are absolutely out of control. Fundraising records are being shattered left and right — pun most definitely intended — from single-day records of $6 million and $4 million by Hillary Clinton and Ron Paul, respectively, to $75 million-plus totals through the third quarter for both Ms. Clinton and Barack Obama. Almost assuredly, this race's campaign contributions will top more than 1 billion among all of the candidates.

If you've got the resources to participate, then step on up. If not, then get the hell out, because your chances of winning this race at a 10, 20, 50, or $100 million disadvantage are about as good as, well, they’re not as good as anything, really. It’s a shame that we are conducting our election campaign in such an exclusionary manner, especially considering most people would probably agree that the best ideas — not the greenest — should win out.

I don’t suppose I should be surprised, though. This certainly isn’t the first time that an election campaign has been about the money; in fact, they almost always are. Being the naive idealist that I am, though, I actually thought the Internet might promote some positive change in this election by downplaying the necessity to raise a yacht-full of cash. "Yeah, there's, like, YouTube and stuff, man. Anybody who has the right things to say will have an audience to listen." Obviously, things haven't really panned out this way, with one possible exception: Ron Paul.

Mr. Paul — whose viral marketing techniques have drawn a great deal of attention recently — represent what I thought we'd see more of in this campaign, even if he is beginning to use the Internet largely as a medium through which to draw money rather than to spread his message.

Admittedly, these Ron Paul references are getting run-down and tired pretty quickly; whether it's because the focus seems to be centrally located around the craze itself rather than the actual man, or because his name constantly reminds me of Ron Jeremy, I'm not sure.

Regardless, though, he has taken a step in the right direction, even if it isn’t going to have a strong enough effect on this race.

If there’s one positive aspect to the ever more ridiculous amounts of cash that are being contributed to campaigns, it’s the growing attention they draw will continue to point out that these massive dumps of money are difficult to track — and their legitimacy and legality will be disputed.

For example, Ms. Clinton’s campaign has recently run into problems with donations from restaurants in New York's Chinatown. The campaign has received several $1,000 donations from low-income restaurant workers, most likely the work of proxy donors. To be cautious, some of the donations were given back by the Clinton campaign; however, not all of them were. Undoubtedly, such donor techniques are used in favor of other candidates as well.

Indeed, it seems that crappy campaign finance will continue to be the reality for now, and with Clean Elections and "Patriot Dollar" ideas not gaining any noticeable momentum, we might be in for the long haul with the current system.

On the bright side, we can still keep up hope for a YouTube video featuring Ron Paul doing the Soulja Boy dance.

Brenton Martell ([email protected]) is a sophomore majoring in English.