Exactly one year ago today, one of the big stories of the day was how Hillary Clinton’s campaign was breaking all sorts of fundraising records as she took in $26 million in the first quarter of 2007. The latest numbers I’ve seen shows that she’s raised about $170 million and spent nearly all of it, with almost $9 million in outstanding debts. Right now she’s about $30 million behind Barack Obama’s campaign. So on one hand it’s not all that surprising to hear that she’s having to loan her campaign money — serious money — just to make it through the Pennsylvania primary.

So, explain this to me, how does her campaign have the audacity to run this ad about how she’s the most prepared to deal with the country’s current financial crisis:

I mean, come on, she can’t even manage her own campaign budget, and she thinks she has the “experience” to deal with the US financial crisis. NO WAY IN HADES! And what idiot is calling about this stuff at 3 in the morning anyway, like it’s possible for any one person to single handedly make everybody’s mortgage payment so the sub-middle class can continue to spend like happy monkeys as they transfer more money they don’t have into the pockets of the Wall Street barons who still don’t think they have enough as they decide to lay off a few more thousand workers before we have our first cup of coffee in the morning.

Sheesh.

The other point is that all the campaigns combined have raised somewhere in the neighborhood of $800 million so far in this Presidential contest (with the Democrats vastly outraising and outspending the Republicans). ALMOST ONE BILLION (with a B) DOLLARS!?!?!?! And most people who thinking about these things guess that the McCain and whichever Democrat makes it through the primary bloodbath will need to raise and spend an additional $500 million apiece (another BILLION dollars) this fall.

And what do we, the people, get for all that money? A President who has to spend more time worrying about how to pay for the next barrage of television ads and robocalls than on real policy issues? Do we really get our money’s worth?

I wonder if we the people will wake up on Wednesday, November 5th with a hangover feeling like Eliot Spitzer asking ourselves if the hooker we had just blown all that money on was really worth the $2 billon. Personally, I don’t think any amount of head or hope is worth that much.