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May 17, 2004 History starts and stops with every campaign The DNC and the left has been beside themselves over this WaPo story about high-dollar donors to the Bush campaign.... For achieving their fundraising goals, Pioneers receive a relatively modest token, the right to buy a set of silver cuff links with an engraved Lone Star of Texas (Rangers can buy a more expensive belt buckle set). Their real reward is entree to the White House and the upper levels of the administration.So, campaign donors tend to be political appointees. Or, perhaps, political appointees tend to be campaign donors. We really don't know which way the causal relationship works, or, indeed, if there even is one. (and how many times do I have to tell you, correlation is not causation!) Be that as it may, I'm having trouble getting worked up over this revelation that political donors tend to be political appointees. While the WaPo may think this is a new phenomenon, I'd... Larry Lawrence, a big donor to the Democratic Party and ambassador to Switzerland...beg... ...Manatt Phelps is a firm with deep political connections. Name partner Charles Manatt co-chaired the Clinton-Gore campaign in 1992, is the ex-Democratic National Committee chairman, and served two years as Clinton's ambassador to the Dominican Republic.to... Lyndon Olson, former CEO of Primerica Insurance Holdings and a soft money donor himself, was appointed the ambassador to Sweden by President Clinton.differ.... President Clinton's nominee to be ambassador to Luxembourg, James C. Hormel, is a businessman, a Democratic Party donor, a wealthy heir to the Hormel meat packing fortune...I could go on. Oh, could I go on. And lest you think I'm excusing Bush by deflecting attention to Clinton, let me point out that this is a longstanding bipartisan tradition. When Mosbacher became secretary of commerce, members of the team were rewarded in various ways, including being invited by Mosbacher on trade missions around the world and, often, being given ambassadorships. ("That's part of what the system has been like for 160 years," Mosbacher said when questioned about it at the time--a judgment the press apparently agreed with.)And Nixon did it... Richard Nixon, insisting that any socialite who wants to be an ambassador must give his campaign $250,000.So, you know, forgive me if I fail to get all worked up when the Washington Post discovers that the Sun sets in the west. Of course, it remains amusing that the DNC can still manage to feign offense while they ask their own donors whether they prefer Fiji or Luxembourg. |
Big donors tend to be active in their party. People active in their party tend to get political appointments. I don't see a big crime here.
As any good Libertarian will tell you, if you want to cut down money's influence on politics, then cut down on government's power. As long as government wields power to drastically affect people's businesses and lives, then people will seek ways to point government away from them.
Posted by: Steverino at May 17, 2004 11:47 PM
I think that you're looking at it the wrong way, Jon. This isn't an outrage issue: this is an access issue.
Think about it. Since 1969 there have been only twelve years, total, where Democrats have been able to reward their donors with perk ambassadorships and federal appointments; even if Bush loses the election the Republicans will have had twice as much do-not-bind-the-mouths-of-the-kine time (we need a smaller word for that). Add to that the fact that the Democrats are coming off of eight years of tossing back the sweet, heady nectar of rewarding-the-donors... well, a bit of a metaphorical sugar crash isn't all that surprising.
Moe
Posted by: Moe Lane at May 18, 2004 07:50 AM
Once upon a time the US sent authors as ambassadors to foreign lands. Robert Louis Stevenson was U.S. ambassador to the U.K., for instance. Bret Harte was an ambassador to Germany.
Of course Poor Richard himself, the good Doctor Benjamin Franklin, was the model, our first ambassador, to France.
Such posts were considered (although not called, the term having not come into use) a "win-win" -- the US countered its rustic image among the European glitterati by putting forward our men of letters, and the men of letters themselves earned a nice stipend to support them while they, presumably, applied themselves to more writing.
Bret Harte, unfortunately, got to Germany at a time when a whole pot load of German inventors were seeking to protect their creations with US patents (as well as European patents) and he got so busy pushing thru the forms he neglected his true calling. This seems to have happened to a number of 2nd tier authors ... now largely forgotten.
Had we sent retired industrialists to embassies, the US might have a richer history of literature. Or not. Who knows?
Posted by: Pouncer at May 18, 2004 07:50 AM
Moe,
So, you're saying the problem is not with Bush giving his friends sweet sinecures, but with an underemployment problem among wealthy Democrat donors.
Yeah, I can go along with that. :)
Posted by: Jon Henke at May 18, 2004 08:00 AM