I’ve got shocking news for Americans. Soft money campaign contributions are legal bribery.

Ho hum.

Arizona Sen. John McCain already finds himself swimming upstream as he begins pushing his pet project against the power of the paranoid party. “Campaign Finance Reform” is a term heard so often, that it sounds like the birds chirping in the background on a bright Sunday morning. It’s nice, but who’s paying attention?

There is nothing good about legal bribery, and everything bad. It means the ones with the most, who give the most, get the most from Uncle Sam. It’s that simple. And, for the politician, he not only has to maintain a check list of his debts to contributors, he must continually run for office, raising money so he or she can get re-elected, so they can keep raising more money.

That’s their job.

No offense to congressman Charles Taylor or any of his colleagues in the U.S. House of Representatives, but I have often wondered about voters getting the biggest bang for the buck. Why aren’t we appalled that members of Congress must spend half of their two-year terms running for re-election, pandering for big bucks from major contributors, attending fund raiser after fund raiser doing everything they can to stay in office. Everything, that is, but dedicating their time and energy to the people’s commission.

It’s the system. They didn’t invent it, they just abide by it.

Can the system be changed? Sure it can.

Who’s going to do it? Aye, there’s the rub. We’ll just leave it to ... (ahem)... the politicians.

The Republican Party sure breathed a sigh of relief when Sen. McCain failed in his bid for the presidential nomination, mainly because the former Vietnam POW had mustered an unexpected swell of support for his reform initiative. He scared the oil out of candidate George W. Bush and the big party machine because these contributions from corporate giants and special interest groups are the pillars upon which any party thrives. If Dupont or the NRA send Bush or Gore, or any senator, congressman or governor, fifty thousand dollars into their war chest, that’s remembered at legislation time. When it’s time to decide between an NRA problem, or a rehabilitation center, you know who gets the nod.

Do we care? Apparently not.

Seems to me, when my colleagues on the police department accepted money for favors, they were either fired or locked up.

When this nation was founded in the late 1700s, the entire population was less than today’s state of South Carolina. Towns were small. Groveling for dough was not on their agenda because most townspeople personally knew their elected representatives. That included judges, aldermen, mayors and even senators. When comparing today’s politics to those of yore, we often hear reverent references to the integrity of our founding fathers. Comparing then to now is like comparing the Conestoga to the Concorde. Jefferson, Franklin and Madison didn’t have to grovel for contributions and owe their soul to anyone but the will of the people.

No more. The only way average Americans can meet their representatives today is a perfunctory handshake at campaign time or by coughing up donations. Otherwise, it’s billboards, name recognition, sound bytes and platform rhetoric.

The general public professes to be appalled at any hint of immorality, including an individual’s sexual transgressions which affects no one except personal family. Yet, taking money for favors isn’t considered among the mortal sins of political life because, well, it’s legal. Watch closely. We all know, down deep in our hearts, that newly elected President, George W. Bush owes dearly. It was his key to the White House. When the time is right, those debts will be satisfied, be it abortion, religious issues, gun control, taxes, environment and much more. It has to do with payback, and nothing to do with personal beliefs.

Americans are notorious for supporting corrupt officials so long as they have clout and charisma. The rest doesn’t matter.

Several years back, the great city of Washington, D.C., thought nothing of reinstating Marion Barry as mayor despite being nabbed on video using crack cocaine with a female consort. The highest official of that city was voted back in charge of the very cops sworn to enforce the laws he broke. Had a cop been caught doing the same, he would not only lost his job, he’d have been sent away for half his lifetime.
Double standard?

Alcee Hastings was a federal judge in Florida who got caught in an alleged bribery scam. Though he was ultimately acquitted in a trial in which his cohort wouldn’t testify against him, it was later discovered that he had committed perjury in his own behalf. He was impeached by the Congress and then convicted by the U.S. Senate by a vote of 100-0, banished from the bench. No doubts there, apparently.
Did it affect voters? Think again. Hastings subsequently ran for a seat in the U.S. House in one of those convoluted ink-blot districts designed to garner the black voting block, and ... get this ... he won! Talk about chutzpa. Now he is a member of the very Congress that impeached him, thanks to an electorate that didn’t give a damn.

My former home town of Miami has been scathed by one political scandal after another exposing an array of crooked politicians, yet the people continue to vote them in.

It boggles the mind.

Legal or not, it still paints the same grim picture that money is the root of all corruption. One way to change and support the democratic system is to get behind Sen. McCain and his bi-partisan constituency in their efforts to do away with soft money. Then, to keep our system honest, taxpayers can finance campaigns of major candidates by pitching in an extra 5 or 10 bucks on their income tax returns. It will make a lot of politicians unhappy, but the American voter would finally supercede corporate giants and special interest groups in the gimme line.

It’s one way of getting sanctioned bribery out of the picture.

That is, if we really care.

(Marshall Frank’s book, Beyond the Call, is available at area bookstores. He can be reached at mlf283@aol.com)

 

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