Corporate-funded conventions epitomize hypocrisy

Talking tough on issues like campaign-finance reform and trying to create an appearance of independence is the current trend in Washington. This week, however, Democrats are epitomizing hypocrisy on that subject at their presidential nominating convention. Next week, Republicans will do the same.

The conventions are cesspools of corporate money. Corporations trying to buy influence in Washington can spend all they want at the conventions to woo politicians and candidates — something they’re not allowed to do the rest of the time.

“It’s as if the laws are suspended so corporations can foot the bill for these huge infomercials for the two parties,” Massie Ritsch, spokesman for the Washington, D.C.-based Center of Responsive Politics, told The Santa Fe New Mexican. “Conventions are an opportunity for corporations to do what they’re not normally permitted to do — subsidize campaigns with unlimited amounts of money right out of their treasuries.”

Watching and reading about the Democratic National Convention in Denver reminds me of Sin City (Las Vegas), where revenue comes largely from tourists openly engaging in shameful behavior they normally reject, or at least try to hide.

This week Democrats from around the nation are cuddling with corporate lobbyists and executives in rooms filled with cigar smoke and brandy. On Monday, AT&T threw many Democrats a private party. You might recall the recent fight in Congress over immunity for telecommunications companies who aided the Bush Administration’s illegal wiretapping program. Think AT&T had a motive for its generosity?

The New Mexican has done a good job this week of reporting — in this article and this article — on the special interests that are taking care of New Mexico’s delegates to the convention.

Presidential candidates put ethics on hold

When the convention ends, the rules return. Barack Obama will talk some more about how he has taken on special interests. Check out this quote from his Web site, taken from a 2007 speech:

“I am in this race to tell the corporate lobbyists that their days of setting the agenda in Washington are over. I have done more than any other candidate in this race to take on lobbyists — and won,” the quote states. “They have not funded my campaign, they will not run my White House, and they will not drown out the voices of the American people when I am president.”

But they are paying for the huge infomercial whose primary aim is electing Obama, so they are funding his campaign. Why is the self-proclaimed candidate of change allowing such a contradiction of his own message?

John McCain is just as bad. His Web site states that he “has fought to enforce long-standing prohibitions on corporate and union contributions to federal political parties, for sensible donation limits, disclosure of how candidates and campaigns are funded, and the diligent enforcement of these common sense rules that promote maximum public participation in the political process and limit opportunities for corruption.”

Except as it relates to the conventions, apparently.

Schmoozing is out in the open

Schmoozing is out in the open at the conventions, just as the guilty pleasures many people wouldn’t normally embrace are normalized in Vegas.

“For me, the main purpose is to schmooze with the many state officials who we work with on an ongoing basis,” Fred O’Cheskey of Albuquerque, a lobbyist for Southern Union Railroad, told The New Mexican about his courting of the New Mexico delegation this week.

And Evan Hanson, director of state government affairs for Williams Cos., a natural gas company based in Oklahoma, had this to say when The New Mexican asked why his company would want to buy lunch for a bunch of New Mexico delegates in Denver:

“We value our relationships with these fine folks,” he said.

I wonder why. I think this week Denver, not Vegas, gets to be called Sin City. Next week it will be Minneapolis and St. Paul.