Dave Eggers: Candidates for sale (the political system guarantees it)

SAN FRANCISCO - Ron Paul, Republican né Libertarian candidate for president, said something very candid and true not too long ago, demonstrating the Chauncey Gardiner-level otherness that his followers so admire. Informed that in one 24-hour period his Internet-savvy supporters had raised more than $4 million for his campaign -- and in so doing had greatly raised the profile of his candidacy in the news media's eyes -- he said, "It's kind of sad, but the money is what has given us credibility, not the authenticity of the ideas."

At this point in the campaign, Paul might be the only candidate still questioning the role of money in the process. For everyone else, campaign finance, however radical or modest, is a fight for another day. And so we in the Bay Area -- a unique nexus of money and progressive engagement -- are visited by the cash-seeking Democratic presidential candidates almost weekly, so often that these visits warrant barely a mention in the local papers.

Not too long ago, having donated to Barack Obama's campaign, I was at a fund-raising event for him at an astoundingly beautiful house in the Oakland hills. It was attended by a perfect cross-section of the Bay Area's well-known progressives: a journalism professor from Berkeley chatting on the veranda; a member of the band Green Day loitering near the breadsticks. From the wisteria-strangled steps, Obama gave a loose and affable speech and then took questions, answering them all with great detail and a certain refreshing lack of polish.

Afterward, I found myself with a few donor-friends in an antechamber designated for photos with the candidate. We all felt sort of out of place, like vegetarians at a Texas barbecue, but a voice in the room soon brightened the mood. Who is that? we wondered. The accent was thick, Brooklyn-based, maddeningly familiar. Another man in line figured it out. "You're George Zimmer!" he said. It was George Zimmer, he of the suits and near-constant ads on the radio. When his turn came, Obama was equally entertained. "It's you!" he said, and his face exploded into that incomparable smile. And with that, the founder of Men's Wearhouse bought himself a $2,300 photo.

This is, though, the original sin of politics: that once born into such a life, one has already sold and will always be required to sell (and usually for a depressingly small price) bits of him or herself, just about every day for the rest of one's time seeking election and serving in office. We complain about politicians being salesmen, and we wonder why so many end up in trouble or even jail -- with the former governor of Illinois, George Ryan, reporting to prison just last month.

When one of them is convicted, it's usually for accepting too much money, or taking money from the wrong people, or in the wrong ways or at the wrong times. But of course, as a society we've created the problem, we've nurtured the addiction. Through a foggy and strained interpretation of the First Amendment, we have accepted that money is free speech, and that a candidate's viability is measured first and foremost by his or her ability to get people to write checks.

Because the San Francisco Bay is choking on 58,000 gallons of oil spilled from an errant tanker -- whose pilot could not, in utterly placid water, avoid a bridge (a bridge!) -- it's inevitable that a strained analogy be made, so here goes. Just as using oil to power our nation's homes and cars will inevitably lead to accidents like this current one (which will affect and diminish our lives for many years to come), and will inevitably lead to wars like this current one (which has affected and will diminish our lives for many years to come), so has the powering of our democracy on cash inevitably led, and will always lead, to any number of similar and corollary catastrophes.

We can try to clean it up, like oil spilled in a bay, but as long as we use the substance in the first place, it will ooze its way into every aspect of our lives. There will be compromised decision-making abroad; there will be the growth and misappropriation of corporate influence; there will be the opting-out of millions of disillusioned youth, the void filled by the cynical and self-interested; and, in the most benign manifestation, there will be a very good man taking thousands of photos, with progressives who wish their support did not have a price tag, in exchange for the maximum personal donation allowed by law.

Dave Eggers is the author, most recently, of the novel "What Is the What." He wrote this article for the New York Times.