Fund-raising frenzy

US political campaigns are becoming steadily more expensive. Is this democracy, or the opposite?

A merican political scientist Brendan Doherty, researching a book due out this summer, has tallied up the fund-raising events held by President Barack Obama. The figure, reported this week in the Washington Post, is eye-opening: 191 events through March 6. That's more than the total of such first-term events for the previous five presidents combined.

In some strange sense it would be good for America if this trend could be blamed on Mr Obama. In fact the title of Prof Doherty's book identifies the main culprit: it's called The Rise of the President's Permanent Campaign and reportedly outlines the way spending, especially on TV advertising, has corrupted the US political dialogue and process. This year's presidnetial campaign will - again- be the most expensive ever.

Nobody in the Mena region needs to be told how important the US is; indeed everyone in the world understands that. But a political system that is too often for sale to the highest-bidding corporations and special interests is not what anyone means by "democracy". The trend toward campaigning by attack ads and reckless rhetoric serves nobody well, except perhaps the coterie of consultants and admen who profit by it.

Many countries with electoral politics have problems of this type, nowhere are they more obvious, or worse, than in the US. It's a problem big enough to worry the world.