The Democratic Party’s hesitance to fully embrace the president’s American Jobs Act isn’t just another example of the ever-powerful role big donors and the corporate lobby play in national politics; it’s a further demonstration that Democrats are scared, lazy and deaf to the American public’s call to end the “Affluent Only” political caste system we live in.

A recent article in The Hill reported that Democrats in the House have been reluctant to co-sponsor the American Jobs Act because it was drafted by the White House, “which should have stream-lined the proposal for floor consideration without official endorsements.”

Obviously, arguing what “should have” happened in the Teapublican-controlled House of Representatives is no more productive than teaching trigonometry to a turtle. But whatever excuses they want to make, the truth is that Democrats hoped to avoid attaching their name to a bill that Republicans have already lambasted as a another “stimulus bill” that “increases taxes on job creators.”

And of course, Congress members are coming up on an election year, which means they have to explain their support of another “stimulus” and debunk the “job creators” myth both to constituents and, more importantly, to their corporate campaign donors.

Clearly worried about the Republican-led backlash against the bill, Democrats in the Senate exempted those making $200,000 a year from the tax increases in Obama’s original plan and focused the increases on those making a million dollars or more a year. The move was purely political, as there isn’t a huge difference in public opinion between taxing the rich (66 percent approve) and taxing the super rich (73 percent approve), but it’s a difference that Republicans have been quick to exploit.

(Fox News particularly likes to make the argument that individuals making $200,000 a year aren’t “rich.”)

The fact is, money matters, and because millionaires, corporations and national political action committees have the most to spend, these big campaign contributors matter most of all. The American Jobs Act offends these political power players and has the potential to turn away the biggest sources of campaign contributions. If Democrats back the bill, they could be seen as biting the very big, very soft, and very powerful hands that feed them – not the hands that directly elect them, but the hands that fund the TV, radio and print advertisements, the rallies, the town hall meetings, the bus tours and the state-by-state campaign offices, staff and other resources that spread the word to the people who do elect them.

Conventional wisdom says that no candidate can mount a powerful campaign against his or her opponent without the support of Big Business. The multi-billion-dollar lobbying apparatus in Washington has been generous to both parties, and making up for that lost revenue would be no small feat.

That said, there is precedent for going in the other direction, for thinking of constituents first and Big Business last, for creating a truly grassroots movement that’s funded by the actual people who will cast their votes in the election. And there is a very recent precedent showing how successful such a campaign can be on a national level.

I’m referring, of course, to Barack Obama.

The half-term Senator of Illinois called on not only Democrats and Independents but also moderate Republicans across the country to show their support for a representative of the middle class, an advocate of change, a candidate who believed (perhaps idealistically, but not incorrectly) that Washington should serve the interests of the American people, not the D.C. lobbyists. By calling on each individual citizen to donate $3, $5, or $20 during his 2008 presidential campaign, Obama proved just how powerful a truly grassroots movement can be in a national campaign.

He created a network of nearly 4 million total contributors. A quarter of his total contributions came from those giving less than $200. And he won. As a generally unknown freshman senator, Obama beat both Hillary Clinton – whose campaign was thought to be untouchable – and John McCain, both of whom were powerhouses in Congress and household names in America. And he did so by bucking historical trends and relying on individual donations instead of the large unions, corporations and political action committees to fund his campaign.

Yes, Obama raked in millions from the Big Business lobby, but his top corporate contributor in the 2008 election cycle, Goldman Sachs, provided only $1 million out of nearly $750 million total contributions. Fifty-seven percent of Obama’s total contributions came from people donating less than $1,000. In contrast, the majority of McCain’s campaign (60 percent) was funded by contributions of $1,000 or more. Obama could have denied every big donor’s contributions and still outraised McCain by $56 million. Had McCain done the same, Obama would have outraised the Arizona Senator $377 million to $150 million.

It’s not realistic or necessary to forego all large donations or all corporate donations, and that isn’t the point. The point is that big donors are no longer necessary for winning elections.

The size of the supporter base is.

What I’m advocating is a simple realignment of priorities.

Rather than running a trickle-down campaign focused on wooing, begging and pandering to large donors, Democrats should push their agenda on the people; rally their constituents with bold stances on taxes, immigration, and economic recovery; encourage volunteerism and small contributions; and rely on the support of their followers to both fund and drive their campaigns. This is what Obama did in 2008. He made the people, every one of us, a part of the campaign, and that bottom-up grassroots organization helped him overcome impossible odds.

It’s worth remembering that corporations donate to both Democrats and Republicans. The contribution gap may favor the GOP, but corporate executives who want representation in Congress will always contribute to candidates who are most likely to win – and winners are determined by the popularity of the candidates, the size and enthusiasm of the base, and power of the candidates’ message, priorities and agendas. If Democrats are willing to put in the extra leg work of selling themselves first to the American public, the corporate backers and big donations will come.

This isn’t the chicken or the egg theory as it applies to campaign strategy. It’s what’s necessary if Democrats want to win in 2012 and take back this country from the under-regulated, over-represented and generally unchecked power of the top 1 percent in America. Luckily, they can have their cake and eat it too, as everything they need for success in 2012 and beyond is already in place.

The American Jobs Act is the one policy that could define the Democratic Party throughout the 2012 election season. It does what the American people (of all political persuasions) have been demanding for the past three years – it creates jobs, increases taxes on the wealthy and reduces the deficit.

If Democrats embrace the bill, that will further demonstrate to the American electorate that the Democratic Party is not beholden to Big Business. And if doing so means corporations will contribute less to House representatives, Senators and congressional candidates running for election in 2012, so be it. That too can and should be used as yet another reason to elect Democrats.

They may be worried about supporting a bill that Republicans have vowed to defeat, but that too is misguided. The success of the bill is irrelevant. Democrats will send a very strong message to the American electorate and draw a stark line in the sand between Democrats and Republicans if they are willing to support job-creating legislation even when the bill is unlikely to pass in the Republican-controlled House, and even if it risks offending big donors.

Risking the abandonment of corporate fundraisers in the interests of the American people, the national debt and the U.S. economy isn’t now and likely never will be a reason to vote against a candidate seeking public office. Big money resembles everything that Americans hate about politics, as it goes to the heart of every skeptic’s argument that “your vote doesn’t matter,” “nothing ever changes in Washington,” and “there’s no difference between Republicans and Democrats.”

Politics does matter, things can change, and there is a difference. The Democratic Party’s full, unrepentant embrace of the American Jobs Act would prove it.

The grassroots movement Democrats will need to compensate for the potential loss of corporate backing in 2012 is already in place, and the call for economic equality, though not so easily defined as the Women’s Suffrage or Civil Rights movements, is nonetheless spreading.

The Occupy Wall Street protests already have succeeded in creating a national dialogue about the effects on Main Street of the unchecked power of millionaires and corporations on Wall Street. In a matter of weeks, the “99 percent” movement has spread to more than 100 cities across the country, demonstrating to officials in D.C. that the future leaders of America will not be elected for being corporate-funded shills, but for actually, honestly and aggressively representing the masses whose votes sent them to Washington in the first place. 

The battle is already won. The uprising has already begun.

If Democrats can remember that they were elected by the 99 percent to represent the 99 percent, and if they back legislation that reflects that commitment, the 1 percent will be banging down the door trying to contribute to their campaigns – because everyone wants to be represented in Congress, and everyone deserves to be represented in Congress.