Citizens United Meets Duckpins For Dollars
When I was in college there was a television show called
Duckpins for Dollars, which pitted local denizens against each other in fierce
duckpin contests for very small amounts of money.
Duckpins are miniature bowling pins, and you try to knock
them down by throwing a bocce-sized duckpin bowling ball. Then, you jump up and down when you manage a
strike, droop your head when you miss a spare, and otherwise ham it up for the
camera while hoping to score a 300 (and $50).
Duckpins for Dollars was half game show, half reality show, and all visionary
in creating cheap programming.
I happened to attend a very nerdy but reasonably esteemed
institution of higher learning. We were
all very clever and highly educated elitist young men and women. So we reveled in the working class
tomfoolery, the poly satin bowling shirts, the funny accents, and the
occasional dental challenges of “Yucks For Bucks”. Not much of a price for dignity, but they
seemed to be having fun.
I hadn’t thought of Duckpins For Dollars until I saw an article in the New York Times, chronicling the efforts of Mitt
Romney’s son Tagg, and Spencer Zwick (Mitt’s 2008 chief fundraiser) as they
sought to create a private equity firm. Their
aim was true, to the tune of nearly a quarter of a billion dollars, and that
fund (named Solamere) now throws off annual fees considerably in excess of the
$50 they might have won on Duckpins (even adjusted for inflation).
Did Tagg or Zwick have experience in private equity? No, they didn’t. Who invested in Solamere? Well, as you might have expected, Mom and Dad
kicked in-as I would for my children, albeit with a few missing zeros. After that seed corn, 60-plus friends of the
Romney clan-political friends, business associates, colleagues, campaign
contributors, etc.
Solamere has fairly done well and delivered a decent return
to investors. It’s also been been run
with an eye towards containing administrative expenses. To that end, it showed frugality by first sharing
an office address with the Romney campaign headquarters in Boston. Later, the
company was located in the same building as Mr. Romney’s leadership PAC, Free
and Strong America.
Mr. Zwick did nicely for himself elsewhere. While he was
heading Solamere’s fund-raising in 2008 and 2009, he multitasked by raising
money for Free and Strong. The PAC paid
his finance consulting firm direct fees of $425,000.00. And there’s other cross-pollination between
the campaign, the PAC, and Solamere, with people doing double duty, all one big
happy family.
This, as my late father would have said, is the way of the
world. The wealthy and the powerful have
each other’s backs. And money needs a
good home, so a quarter-billion just isn’t all that much among friends.
It is logical to ask whether we should care that there’s a
potential relationship between Tagg, some of his investors, Mitt, and Mitt’s
PAC. Would President Mitt be
influenced? I am inclined to give him
the benefit of the doubt, if for no other reason that I can’t think of anyone
who more embodies the idea of doing what's good for business than Mitt Romney. I
don’t think he needs the incentive.
The late California politician Jesse Unruh was quoted as
saying “money is the mother’s milk of politics”. That was in 1966, and not much has changed
since then. There’s always been money
available; in little sealed packets, by checks, to PACs, from businesses, from
unions, through bundlers, through the front door and the back. There’s “walking around money” pressed into
the palms of locals by advance men for campaigns. In Jimmy Breslin’s book about Watergate, “How
The Good Guys Finally Won” Breslin writes about how the young Tip O’Neill was
flabbergasted to see the cold hard cash that was handed to JFK’s men. So, let’s not get our backs up too much when
we find out that politics is a game where the dollar is well respected.
Unfortunately, Citizen’s United has completely changed the
game, by amplifying those dollars exponentially. The silly $200 campaign contribution limits
are gone, obviating the need for some of the more glamorous skullduggery. Now, unlimited, perfectly legal and confidential
contributions funneled through Super Pacs, organizations like ALEC, and “dark
money groups” rule the roost. No more high-fiving for a $50 strike.
Imagine the Congressman or Senator locked in a tight race,
and a lobbyist for some special interest group sidles up to him and says,
“Congressman, you know that legislation coming through your committee? Well, we
have some concerns and some drafting suggestions. By the way, we’ve always admired your
fair-mindedness, even when you didn’t agree with our position, and we’d like to
express that by helping out a bit in November.”
Can you blame businesses for trying to acquire that type of
access? Corporations may, in Mitt’s
memorable phrase, be people too, but they have no immortal soul-they exist to
make profits. If a perfectly legal contribution
to a Congressman can deliver up favorable legislation that produces a high return
on investment, why wouldn’t you make it?
Can every politician be bought? Of course not, but if you were that
Congressman, you wouldn’t be human if you didn’t at least listen. It’s good to
be a Congressman. And it’s really good to be a Senator. So, faced with the reality of holding your
nose a little for a teensy vote, or possibly being sent packing to less
glamorous locales, maybe you hold your nose.
Is this good for the mere rank and file citizen? Not really, but that’s where Solamere and
Duckpins can serve as an inspiration. If wealthy folk can all bond together for
fun and profit, why not the rest of us?
There were 131,313,820 votes cast in the last presidential
election. Subtract the one percent and
that leaves 130 million voters. If each
of us kicked in just ten measly dollars, that’s $1.3 Billion, which starts to
get us into Karl Rove territory. Heck,
maybe we could begin buying back some of our wayward leaders?
It’s a start. Fellow Citizens, let’s unite. Just a thought
from a Yuck with Ten Bucks.
MM
