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Lots of email this week about Saturday's show where we almost choked on the numbers regarding the charitable giving levels of the 4 candidates (Obama, Biden, McCain, and Palin). Biden, in particular, has set a new low for any human being who actually deducts charitable contributions (.15%).

But not everyone agreed with my assessment. Here is one of my favorite responses.

Allen,

I listened between 10:05 and 10:15 pm Saturday night. Now Biden and Palin have to answer for themselves .... But with regard to Obama, I believe you reached a conclusion on an incomplete set of information,

Coming out of law school, Barack could have written his own ticket on Wall Street. He had many offers, especially after being the first African American to head up the Harvard Law Review. But he forwent that, to give back to people of color that he felt he owed a debt to, based on the civil rights struggles of the sixties. So he might have made 4x what he made as a community organizer in Chicago. To my math, that's a 75% donation to follow his own heart and affect the lives of many in Chicago. So how did he do? Do they want him back? He did great. But they don't want him back, in the best possible way. He did such a great job, that now they don't need him to come back. He showed them how to come together and improve their own condition. To do so, he spent a lot of time with them and broke bread with them, just as the early Christians did in the book of Acts.

So 75% dwarfs the other numbers you mentioned from other political figures. It would seem that the figures you quoted could be misleading ... and in this case definitely were. As for me, if Barack were to ask me to give back (which I already do) I woud have no problem, doing as he says, because I know that he already has lived it out in his own life. He is NOT a case of only easy talk. He's backed it up with action.

For the record, I listened on WPTF 680AM in Raleigh NC.

Sincerely, Tim