One of the funniest stories to come out of the Los Angeles convention -- after Jesse Jackson's urgent advice to the country to "stay out (of) the Bushes," of course -- was the claim by Democratic officials that their fund-raisers weren't so bad because they weren't actually fund-raisers.
The Democrats decided to call these gatherings "donor maintenance" events instead. Or -- even more delightful for those of us who relish bizarre euphemisms -- "donor servicing."
One of the curious things about this second phrase is that it actually has worse connotations than "fund-raising" does.
But "servicing" tells the story. It is exactly what wealthy individuals, corporations and other special interests expect when they give the political parties large amounts of money.
Several analogies come to mind, but let's go with this one:
The special interests write big checks to the political parties during the campaign season. In many cases, playing it safe, they give large sums to both parties at the same time.
Then, after election day has come and gone, the fat cats drive up to the old-fashioned service station in Washington, toot the horn and cry: "Fill 'er up!"
"Oh, yes sir!" the grateful politicians reply as they scurry out to the car and start pumping in tax dollars. "Right away, sir!"
That's the scenario average taxpayers should remember about the current campaign-finance system, regardless of what the politicians decide to call their fund-raisers.
(Why not just "bribery parties"? It's simple, direct; no room for embarrassing confusion about what's really going on.)
One other detail: The special interests essentially use some of the tax money they get to make their next round of campaign donations.
A corporation receives a $30 million tax subsidy, for example. It then hands over $500,000 of that money to help its friends in Washington get re-elected.
The corporation then gets another government subsidy, and the cycle goes on and on.
So whenever you hear of opponents of campaign-finance reform hyperventilating about the idea of "public funding" for political campaigns, you can try to calm them down by pointing out: We've got public funding already.
The American taxpayer is always going to pick up the tab for political campaigns. The only question is whether we are going to continue to tolerate the special-interest bribery that comes with the current set of "rules," if you want to call them that.
Which brings us to Al Gore's convention speech. Did you realize that he said his top legislative priority would be campaign-finance reform?
If you did not, don't feel too bad. A lot of other people missed it, too. And no wonder.
Although the Gore campaign described his speech Thursday night as an in-depth exploration of important issues, in the case of this supposedly most important issue Gore only skimmed the surface.
The vice president only devoted a couple lines in the middle of his speech to campaign-finance reform -- about the same amount of attention community policing got.
That's better, though, than George W. Bush did in his convention speech. The Republican nominee ignored campaign-finance reform entirely, although he supposedly supports a ban on "soft money" contributions from unions and corporations.
We can only hope that Gore is serious about draining the campaign-finance swamp.
But even aside from his skimpy treatment of it Thursday night, there are reasons for skepticism:
The Clinton administration, in which Gore has served for the last eight years, has talked about campaign-finance reform but never gave it a high priority.
Both major parties have historically taken turns frustrating campaign-finance reform efforts. It depends largely on each party's immediate prospects under the current system.
Gore has himself had well-publicized trouble in the campaign-finance area in years past. And his campaign this year, like the Bush campaign, drew charges of illegal behavior last month from Common Cause, a respected organization that focuses attention on ethics in government.
This year's "servicing events" have been extremely successful for the Democrats. Party officials are giddy over getting more corporate money to go along with the usual donations from unions, trial lawyers and entertainers.
This last point leads to an intriguing theory: That Republican politicians, having lost some of the edge they enjoyed in corporate donations, may now have less reason to resist serious reform.
Even if this is true, however, history suggests that Democrats are likely to revert to vigorously defending the status quo.
Would Gore, if elected, really try to break the pattern? Or would he be content to just rename the fund-raisers?
© 2000 The Kansas City Star
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