999 - Because money follows money like a dog sniffing another dog's hind end. And it takes a lot of money to win an election, specially in the USA. People only vote for someone they've heard and seen a lot in the mass media. The mass media are owned by the rich. The rich decide who it is whom the people will hear and see a lot in the mass media.

That's a closed circle. With a predictable result. Obama was by far the best funded candidate in the 2008 election, and he looked like "change", so he got elected. It was a cosmetic change, not a real change.

This is really Imperial Rome, folks. We have a pretence of democracy through our charade of elections. We have a Senate of rich men. We have an empire. And we are its plebes.