肯塔基州保龄格林——梅根·温菲尔德向加油站店员道歉，她费力地剥开并数着那薄薄一叠钞票。最终清点出的金额是23美元——只够给她的2013款吉普车加半箱油，开往当晚的竞选活动。
BOWLING GREEN, Ky.—Megan Wingfield apologized to the gas station clerk as she labored to unpeel and count the thin stack of bills. The tally, when it eventually arrived, was $23—good for half a tank for her 2013 Jeep to get her to that evening’s campaign event.
对于32岁的温菲尔德来说，这是一位民主党首次参选者，这种微小的屈辱只是她在肯塔基州第二国会选区对阵资金雄厚的现任议员、进行这场捉襟见肘的竞选中遭遇的众多窘境之一。她最近甚至把电动工具典当了，“为了维持生计”。
For Wingfield, 32, a Democrat and first-time candidate, that small indignity was but one of many in a threadbare campaign she is running against a well-funded incumbent in Kentucky’s Second congressional district. She recently pawned her power tools “to make ends meet.”