Hillary’s Corporate Cash Machine

We liberals and progressives are asked to take an oath now and then – it’s implicit in much of the debate regarding Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. I think of it as the “Nader inoculation”. It goes something like this: “Do you swear that no matter who the Democratic nominee turns out to be, that you will vote for him or her?” Often it is followed by an oath of allegiance – “We are really fortunate to have two excellent candidates.”

That’s not true, of course. We don’t have two really excellent candidates. We have one really bad candidate, and one we don’t know too much about. And given the current state of American media coverage, we’re not going to find out much about Barack Obama save that damned lapel pin and his goofy minister.

Hillary is the definition of what is wrong with the Democratic Party. She’s mostly Republican, judging by her pro-war votes, her pro-free trade agreements record while her husband was president, and pro-USA Patriot Act votes. She’s taken more money from the health care industry than any other candidate, yet tells us that she’ll be a reformer. She has the audacity to claim that all that money means nothing, that corporate CEO’s throw money away by giving it to her and expecting nothing in return.

But oh my the enthusiasm of her followers. These are the liberals, soft on issues, and weak on recent history (like from 1993 to 2001). And we are cautioned again not to make the same “mistake” in 2008 that we made in 2000, when some of us got uppity and demanded more progressive policies from the conservative Democrat Al Gore. That, they tell us, gave us Bush. It wasn’t Gore, not his failings, not his weak campaign and conservative vice presidential candidate, not his failure to lead on progressive issues – no, it was only Nader. That’s how Democrats think.

In the ensuing years since 2000 it’s come up again and again, and freethinkers have pretty well been beaten into submission. Democrats act like royalists, and we have no right to support anyone but the one they put up. We are wrong to expect more of our political system than those vague mirror images of one another we got in 2000.

I think they’ve succeeded now – progressives have been roped into the Democratic Party.

But there is hope. Hillary Clinton, according to the Wall Street Journal (Fund Race: Obama Outflanks ‘Hillraisers’), relied on a tried and true fund raising strategy – she used wealthy patrons to shake down corporate executives and heavy hitters. Her campaign was almost exclusively tied to big money. And she’s losing.

Barack Obama, on the other hand, has used a ramped-up version of Howard Dean’s internet fund raising strategy, and to great success. His average donor gives around $200 – that doesn’t mean that money is not seeking him out or that he is not selling favors – it only means that he is not so indebted to corporate cash as Hillary. If elected, he might be more free to pursue independent policies, unlike Hillary.

I’m both cynical and naive all at once. I want to believe in Obama, and I know that structurally, a candidate is married to his source of income. If a candidate’s income comes from a huge base with a non-specific agenda, he would be free to write his own ticket. If money comes in large chunks from sources advocating specific policies, then the candidate, once elected, will pursue those policies as surely as the little lamb followed Mary.

I oversimplify, of course, reducing this massive system of bribery down to something mentally manageable. There are many checks and balances operating in our system – for one thing, corporations don’t always agree on policies. For instance, General Motors may want health care reform, while Aetna doesn’t. (But when they do agree on a policy, it is faithfully carried out by both parties – ref: Iraq.) The media, who seem to be a monolith, can also pick and choose among a host of issues, selecting and emphasizing as they please, ignoring as they please. (ref: Rev. Wright, yes, Rev. Hagee, no.) And when elections draw near, candidates are even seen to vote according to the majority wishes of their constituencies.

Often times grassroots movements affect policies. It’s been known to happen now and then, though not often. All of the great progressive and reform movements of the 20th century came from outside the political parties. It’s harder to get something going anymore, as mass media seems to have euthanized the population, but it’s still possible.

It’s a complex web – but something seemingly somewhat progressive is going here, perhaps a movement is afoot, perhaps we have the real deal in Obama. Perhaps we have found a way to subvert corporate control of the Democratic Party. The Republicans are holding their fire, but surely have something unseemly in the works – Obama’s candidacy, no matter the polls, is a long shot.

But for today it appears that a bad candidate is going down, and that a good one is winning. Here’s a quote from the above Wall Street Journal article, regarding Chris Korge, one of Clinton’s Wall Street “bundlers”, or one charged with roping in corporate cash:

If Sen. Clinton loses, what happens to her fund-raisers? In any normal political season, Mr. Korge and others would sign on with the last candidate standing. In 2004, Mr. Korge backed then-Florida Sen. Bob Graham, who made a brief run at the nomination. Then he shifted to then-Rep. Richard Gephart, who eventually was vanquished by Sen. John Kerry. Mr. Korge then went on to raise some $3 million for Sen. Kerry.

That may not happen this time. “I’m a party man, and plan to support the nominee, whoever it may be,” Mr. Korge says. “Will I go flat-out for Obama? I’m not sure Obama needs folks like me.”

Indeed, there is hope for all of us.