Campaigns awash in cash

Mitt Romney's money keeps me awake at night.

Staring into the darkness, I imagine what I would do if I earned $50,000 a day. (From interest and dividends on the millions upon millions I have sitting in various banks.) My wildest dreams start with setting up college funds for my boys and my niece and my kid sister, paying off the mortgage and car and credit cards, making sure my mom has money to retire.

That’s the first couple weeks of daily $50k work-free deposits.

Then I take care of mortgages for the rest of my family and college costs for my friends’ kids.

Maybe we go on an exotic vacation. Maybe I finally hire someone to fix the dang closet door.

Most of the folks in a wildly unscientific poll I conducted outlined similar plans for such piles of cash. (Except one treasured friend who posits that she would do all that and then “eat money sandwiches with extra mayo.” Better than just throwing it out the window.)

Sure, it’s a variation on my “just won the lottery” fantasy.

But in both scenarios, once I get past the desire to make my loved ones financially secure, I ask myself whether I could bend enormous wealth to a philanthropic purpose.

I could buy EZPasses for all the folks in Portsmouth who will soon need one to get to their jobs on the other side of the tunnels. I could give the Hampton Roads Community Foundation some serious, game-changing cash. I could help all my former journalist friends who got laid off from one newspaper or another find their feet while they learn a new livelihood.

Not one person in my statistically insignificant poll, me included, would opt to use the money to run for office or fund a Super PAC.

Money matters so much to our electoral process that stories on Romney’s primary wins mention income and campaign finances dozens of times — sometimes to the exclusion of voters’ reasons for their choice. Speculation on Romney’s presumptive nomination to the GOP ticket centers on the fact that he has more cash than other candidates to wage a long battle.

Perhaps he’ll just pelt Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul with crumpled twenties until they all look green and wrinkly.

Our national elected officials have grown much, much wealthier even as income for working-class Americans has declined. A Washington Post story in December found that the median net worth of a member of the U.S. House of Representatives in 2009 was about $725,000. Median net worth of an average American family: $20,500. And that number was lower than a family’s earnings, in inflation adjusted dollars, from more than 25 years ago.

Meanwhile, officials set about shutting down the last Occupy Wall Street encampments, in Oakland, Calif., and Washington, D.C.

I’d wager (maybe 10 grand, now just a fifth of a day’s pay) that Romney has never wondered where the money will come from to fix the plumbing or buy a new clothes dryer. I’d wager that few of our elected officials of either political party have had such worries. It’s hard for me to believe Romney, or any candidate, really, who claims to focus on the needs of middle-income Americans.

How could they know?

That keeps me awake at night, too. Perversely, those who do know can’t afford to run for office. It’s as improbable as winning the lottery. Or having $50,000 a day to spend. I wish I could get to sleep.

Michelle Washington is an editorial writer for The Virginian-Pilot. Email: michelle.washington@pilotonline.com.