Pocket Pool on Capitol Hill

“It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first.” – Ronald Reagan

For Congress men and women, running for office every two years, raising campaign contributions to stay in office and fend off opponents is… unfortunately… job one. Running the country is… unfortunately… job two. Gridlock is the easy button for folks in redistricted (gerrymandered) venues where compromise with the other side is simply another way of resigning. You will be replaced if you are in one of those districts.

For special interests, this scenario, combined with the fact that fund raising and running for office (which used to take only the last six months of the elected term) never stops, is a joy and a blessing. While everyone knows that making an express “I’ll donate but you have to vote ______ on my behalf if I do or given me an appointment” agreement is forbidden, everyone knows – wink wink – that that is precisely what will happen.

So in a perfectly openly corrupt system – legal corruption as I have labeled it in the past – the most efficient structure for putting campaign contributors looking to buy influence with legislators with influence to sell would be a campaign contribution “exchange,” one that would world like something between those new healthcare insurance exchanges and the NYSE. Odd as it seems, Washington appears to created such a de facto mechanism, one that most certainly not in the interests of most Americans. Souls and votes for sale. It interesting to see where professional fundraisers actually take place.

In the District of Columbia, there is a circuit where Congress-folks extract their cash. “According to a new analysis by the Sunlight Foundation of five years of fundraising data, about three-quarters of fundraisers happen within a checkbook’s throw (make that three blocks) of the Capitol. To be fair, Washington weather is often brutal, with its crushing humidity half the year, slushy rain in the winter, etc. So we can hardly blame our well-coiffed and loafer-shod lawmakers for not wanting to pound the pavement too often.

“Strap on those pedometers, people, because we’re talking a five-minute stroll: Proving the adage that the three most important things in real estate are location, location and location, the top venues for fundraisers, according to the Sunlight report, include close-to-the-Dome restaurants Johnny’s Half Shell, Charlie Palmer Steak and Bistro Bis.

“Far and away the most often-used joint, though, is the Capitol Hill Club [pictured above], which essentially functions as the GOP’s clubhouse. It hosted a whopping 1,966 fundraisers of the nearly 14,000 that the foundation catalogued… We should also note that of the top fundraising sites, the most bipartisan is Charlie Palmer Steak, which hosts a near-even split of Republican and Democratic events. Juicy rib-eyes, it seems, are one thing both parties can agree on… And perhaps Republicans don’t prefer French food: The tony Bistro Bis attracts mostly Dems, with 71 percent of its fundraisers for Democrats and only 21 percent for Republicans.” Al Kamen writing for the Washington Post, September 16^th. Makes you proud to be an American.

I’m Peter Dekom, and could we be less hypocritical and solve our deficit problems by simply eliminating elections and replacing them with an open “cash for office” bidding process?