Via Wall Street Journal. Who is going to apply some mental elbow grease to this, or pretend to, and come to the honest conclusion that Sen. Obama is looking out for the interests of voting and democracy?

Asked about whether he supports term limits, the Illinois Senator was unequivocal: “I’m generally not in favor of term limits. Nobody is term-limiting the lobbyists or the slick operators walking around the halls of Congress. I believe in one form of term limits. They’re called elections.”

Wow, how can you argue with that? He’s even upholding the dignity of the greatest legislative chamber in the world by talking like a snotty teenager, and everything.

Well, WSJ goes on to shed light on what’s going on here:

Even in 2006 midterm elections, when Republicans lost control of Congress and voters were angry with incumbents, 94% of incumbents won re-election. Normally, re-election rates in the House are closer to 96% and here’s one reason: Incumbents on average raise $2 million per election — or three times more than challengers.

So, the corrupting power structure in Washington and lifetime politicians can relax. When it comes to cleaning up the swamp of special interests inside the Washington beltway, Mr. Obama may be touting a slogan of “change you can believe in,” but he sounds more and more like a defender of the status quo.

It’s a vicious cycle, and Barack Obama knows it. Incumbents raise more money than challengers; incumbents spend more money on advertising. The price of advertising goes up. As the price of advertising goes up, the incumbent advantage over challengers is widened. As the advantage of incumbents over their challengers is widened, it makes more financial sense for those interested in legislative outcome to donate the incumbents, and so the incumbents raise more money. After a few cycles have been completed, what you have is an entrenched power structure that has a vested interest in the price of advertising staying high, and then the high cost of advertising ensures that the merry-go-round cranks over a few more cycles.

If the incumbent has been in there a long time and is highly likely to win because of it, and you like him, it seems to make a whole lot of sense. That is not true of first-term Sen. Obama, but it’s true of a lot of his friends, fer sure.