[NYTr] Krugman: Death of the machine

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

[Even the liberals are becoming totally disgusted with the One Part
with Two Names. Maybe one of the  real candidates who'd give us a real
choice do have a chance: Dennis Kucinich, Ron Paul, and Mike Gravel.
-NY Transfer]


The New York Times via Intl Herald Tribune - Oct 19, 2007
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/10/19/opinion/edkrugman.php

Death of the machine

by Paul Krugman

PRINCETON, New Jersey: 'There are two things that are important in
politics. The first is money, and I can't remember what the second one
is." So declared Mark Hanna, the great Gilded Age political boss.

Karl Rove has often described Hanna as his role model. And predictions
that Rove and his disciples would succeed in creating a permanent
Republican majority - I have a whole bookshelf of volumes with titles
like "One Party Nation" and "Building Red America" - depended crucially
on the assumption that the Republican Party would have vastly more
money than its opponents. It might even, some thought, match the
10-to-1 advantage Hanna gave William McKinley when he ran against
William Jennings Bryan.

Oops. According to data collected by the Center for Responsive Politics,
in the current election cycle every one of the top 10 industries making
political donations is giving more money to Democrats. Even industries
that have in the past been overwhelmingly Republican, like insurance and
pharmaceuticals, are now splitting their donations more or less evenly.
Oil and gas is the only major industry that Republicans can still call
its own.

The sudden burst of corporate affection for Democrats is good news for
the party's campaign committees, but not necessarily good news for
progressives. Before I get to the down side, however, let's talk about
why business seems to be giving up on the Republicans.

To some extent it's a matter of cold political calculation. Polls, plus
a wave of Republican retirements, suggest that next year the Democrats
will expand their majority in the House, which is already bigger than
anything the Republicans ever had during their 12-year reign. Of the 34
Senate seats up for election, 22 are held by Republicans, and major
Democratic gains seem all but inevitable.

Add to this the weakness of the Republican presidential field, and it's
not surprising that lobbyists are casting in their lot with the likely
winners. But that's not the whole story.

There's also disgust, even in the corporate world, with the corruption
and incompetence of the Bush years. People on the left often describe
the Bush administration as an agent of corporate America; that's giving
it too much credit.

The truth is that while the administration has lavished favors on some
powerful, established corporations, the biggest scandals have involved
companies that were small or didn't exist at all until they started
getting huge contracts thanks to their political connections. Thus,
Blackwater USA was a tiny business until it somehow became the leading
supplier of mercenaries for the War on Terror(TM).

And the lethal amateurishness of these loyal Bushies on the make
horrifies the corporate elite almost as much as it horrifies ordinary
Americans.

Last but not least, even corporations are relieved to see the end of
what amounted to a protection racket.

In a classic 2003 article in The Washington Monthly, Nicholas Confessore
(now at The New York Times) described the efforts of people like former
Senator Rick Santorum to turn K Street into an appendage of the
Republican Party - not the other way around. "The corporate lobbyists
who once ran the show, loyal only to the parochial interests of their
employer," wrote Confessore, "are being replaced by party activists who
are loyal first and foremost to the GOP."

But corporations weren't happy. According to The Politico, "many CEOs"
used the term "extortion" to describe "the annual shakedowns by
committee chairmen with jurisdiction over their industries." And now
that Santorum is out of office, heading the America's Enemies program
at a right-wing think tank, the faint sound you hear from K Street is
that of lobbyists singing: "Ding, dong, the witch is dead."

All of this greatly increases the odds that the Republicans, far from
establishing a permanent majority, will be out of power for quite a
while. But it also raises the question of what Democratic rule will
really mean.

Right now all the leading contenders for the Democratic nomination are
running on strongly progressive platforms - especially on health care.
But there remain real concerns about what they would actually do in
office.

Here's an example of the sort of thing that makes you wonder: On
Thursday ABC News reported on its Web site that the Clinton campaign is
holding a "Rural Americans for Hillary" lunch and campaign briefing -
at the offices of the Troutman Sanders Public Affairs Group, which
lobbies for the agribusiness and biotech giant Monsanto. You don't have
to be a Naderite to feel uncomfortable about the implied closeness.

I'd put it this way: Many progressives, myself included, hope that the
next president will be another FDR. But we worry that he or she will
turn out to be another Grover Cleveland instead - better-intentioned
and much more competent than the current occupant of the White House,
but too dependent on lobbyists' money to seriously confront the
excesses of the new Gilded Age.