In a miraculous showcase of exactly what it means to try and have your cake and eat it too, senior White House adviser David Plouffe appeared on ABC on Tuesday morning to criticize Mitt Romney and his supporters for trying “to purchase the White House.”

“You’ve got a few very wealthy people lining up trying to purchase the White House for Mr. Romney,” said Plouffe on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “We’re going to have to have everybody out there who wants the president to continue to a second term to step up and help the campaign.” …

“We had our best fundraising month yet, and we still fell about $35 million short. We can win while being outspent — but we need to keep it close,” said Ann Marie Habershaw, the campaign’s chief operating officer. …

“The real new dynamic in this race is obviously the super-PACs, and we have three or four Republican super-PACs at any time spending tens of millions of dollars aimed at the president. So that’s what’s really new in this election cycle,” Plouffe said.

“Money matters in politics. We’re running a great campaign, we’ve got millions of volunteers out there registering voters, donating $25 or $50, but you’ve got to have enough money to run a one-year campaign and our big concern are these super-PACs.”

Okay, first off, just a gentle reminder: Team Obama currently holds the record for the most money raised by a presidential campaign in a single month, evah. They raised $150 million dollars in September 2008, but now that the tables have turned and Mitt Romney’s camp is already hitting the $100 million mark, they’re throwing a hissyfit. I do not for a hot second believe, as Plouffe claims, that Team Obama fully expected to be outfundraised and outspent by Team Romney — I’d wager they’re rather unpleasantly surprised, and are now trying to play up the put-upon little-guy angle.

Secondly, news flash: All candidates and their supporters try to buy elections. That’s what campaigning is. Just like Plouffe said in the segment, money matters in politics. I know that Team Obama knows this, because I’ve lately been inundated with a barrage of e-mails from Obama & Co. asking me for more money.

We’re getting outraised — a first for a sitting president, if this continues. Not just by the super PACs and outside groups that are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into misleading ads, but by our opponent and the Republican Party, which just outraised us for the second month in a row.

We can win a race in which the other side spends more than we do. But not this much more.

So I need your help. If you believe that regular people should decide elections, then please chip in $3 or more today.

Really, the Obama campaign can stop acting like the innocent victims of evil corporate usury any time now. Obama was Wall Street’s favorite candidate in 2008, and I haven’t seen him make any moves to shut down the wily outside-group game operating in his favor. What’s more, as Ed already noted, if President Obama is so averse to large donations, how is it somehow more moral to accept gigantic sums from unions (whose donations are almost overwhelmingly Democratic) than corporations (who tend to divide their donations between both parties)?

The hypocrisy truly knows no bounds.