NO HABLO MACERO

We’re speaking two languages, Cosmo Macero and me.

The Boston Herald columnist says in his column today that “Many of those contributions pouring into [Howard] Dean’s campaign over the Internet represent the voices of powerful interest groups -- invested with the former Vermont governor at the bargain-basement price of $100.” He also quotes Noam Scheiber from The New Republic saying those $100 donators to Dean’s presidential campaign “start to feel they own the campaign,” apparently just like the $2,000 donators over in President Bush territory.

“Howard Dean isn’t getting special interest money out of presidential politics. He’s just slashing the price of entry,” Macero writes.

This confuses me, unless it’s satire. It may be, since no national politician relies on a single $100 donation and couldn’t be swayed by losing one.

But I suspect my first guess is more accurate -- that we are speaking different languages -- and that Macero is somehow misreading the intentions of Dean’s backers (and possibly Scheiber).

If I give money to a presidential campaign, it’s because I support what the campaigner says and want him to win against opponents who feel differently. It’s not because I think $100 buys me access. The “ownership” of Dean backers is the ownership of a sports fan, not an investor in a sports team. It’s when people pay outrageous amounts of money for a ticket that they start to feel they’re owed something by whatever they’re supporting, and it’s the same in politics.

That feeling may be adjusted by income, meaning that for some people, giving $2,000 may feel exactly how giving $100 feels for others, but I wouldn’t know: I’ve never been in the position to comfortably give $2,000. But at the Bush campaign, the bar has been raised: It’s no longer about giving money, but about rounding up a bunch of other people to give money, with the organizer getting credit for the results.

That sounds very little like the Dean campaign, which, despite what Macero implies, isn’t the same as the Bush campaign.