Hello? I'm calling from your favorite political party

Could you please send us a million dollars?

TIME: 8:49 p.m. on a warm Sunday, April 15.

[The phone rings.]

ME: Hello?

CALLER: Hello. Is [name of my wife] home?

ME: May I ask who's calling?

CALLER: I'm calling from the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party of Minnesota.

[I look at the caller ID. The phone call is coming from a number in Milwaukee.]

ME: From Milwaukee?

CALLER: It must be a bounce. I'm actually calling from Little Falls.

ME: Oh, how was the weather up there today?

CALLER: Nice. But I didn't get to see much of it. I had to work.

ME: I understand. A drag.

CALLER: Yeah.

ME: Are you a DFLer?

CALLER: Yep.

ME: But they pay you, right? You're not a volunteer?

CALLER: No, they pay me.

ME: Do you earn a salary or are you on commission?

CALLER: Both.

ME: I see. But I bet it's not much, is it?

CALLER: No. But it's about the only thing I can get here. There aren't too many good jobs in Little Falls.

ME: I can imagine. I've done phone solicitation before. It's not easy.

CALLER: No, it isn't.

ME: You're not union, are you?

CALLER: [Pause.] No.

ME: The DFL is a big supporter of unions. Too bad there isn't a union for phone callers.

CALLER: Yeah.

ME: Well, I'd like to help you, but actually we've given this year. We give to our local DFL.

CALLER: OK.

ME: I'd like to help you, but...

CALLER: It's all right.

ME: Good luck.

CALLER: Thanks.

ME: 'Bye.

CALLER: 'Bye.

[I hang up.]

Now for the equal time part. I used to get phone calls from the Republicans as well. Heck, I may still get some in the future. They invariably seem to come from someplace in Utah. Only they're not a bounce. The caller is really calling from Utah. I ask pretty much the same questions. Except I say, "Are you a Republican?"

The answer varies. Sometimes they say yes. Sometimes they say they're not political. Whereupon I ask if they're registered to vote, and they say, "No." So I encourage them to register to vote and become aware of the issues that may affect them, because after all, this is a democracy, isn't it?

I remember one caller for the Republicans in particular. This was some time ago. I asked her my usual retinue of questions. When I came to my "Are you a Republican?" question, she said, no, she was a Democrat. I said, "Why are you calling for the Republicans then?"

She said, "Because it's the only job I could get. I have three kids."

Oh.

I'm not a big fan of political fund raising. I'm a firm believer that money taints the system. And, right now, it's all we seem to hear about when the political races are brought up.

"Hillary Clinton has raised $26 million."

"Barack Obama has raised $23.5 million."

"Mitt Romney has raised more than $20 million."

"Rudolph Giuliani has raised $13.8 million."

"John McCain has raised $13 million."

All told, that's almost $100 million. In one quarter. Eight months before the Iowa caucuses. Nine months before the first primaries. (If you're a female you could conceive and have a kid in that time.) A little more than a year and a half before the general election.

What if those megabuck donations could go toward something else?

Let's see. One hundred million dollars.... That'll get you about 50 million school lunches or 20 million meals on wheels or 2 million children's dental visits or two-thirds of a day of war in Iraq.

While certainly a sad commentary on our national priorities, it's not just the candidates and political parties who are to blame. It's the media, too. To them, "Who's raising how much money?" is more important than "What do you plan to do about the health care crisis in this country?"

And it's not just CNN, Fox, ABC, NBC and CBS. It's NPR and PBS as well. Heck, they're the worst.

Is there something wrong with this picture?

Perhaps all this political fund raising is giving somebody a lousy-paying job in Little Falls, Minn., or God-knows-where, Utah, but I'll be damned if I can figure out what good it's doing for our democracy.

Can anybody give me a clue?