Campaign Funds Probes - Much Ado About Ado

Campaign Fund Probes - Much Ado About Ado?

Monday, July 7th, 1997 -- Don't be fooled by the campaign fundraising hearings set to begin Tuesday in the Senate, with the House sequel due to air in the Fall.

The hearings are designed for a single purpose -- to smear Democrats just in time for the 1998 elections when the entire House and one-third of the Senate are up for election. The hearings will provide live videotape for television commercials which we'll all see -- deftly cut -- to provide maximum embarrassment to Democrats and the President next year.

The only problem will be that Republicans may step in their own mess as the hearings progress.

The hearings in the Senate are presided over by Senator Fred Thompson (R-TN). Thompson, a Watergate lawyer turned actor turned politician, is bending over backwards to appear judicious. He does a good job. Appearing Sunday on ABC television's This Week, Thompson was almost demure in his presentation. But the "facts" leaked out nonetheless through his deft posturing and down-home charm.

Somehow Thompson got out the word that he plans to call more than 200 witnesses to testify. He then stepped lightly when questioned as to whether the President and Vice President would be called to spill the beans as well. Thompson, of course refused to divulge the names of subpoenaed witnesses, most likely because none of them could be considered "stars."

While Republicans might do well by calling corporate moguls to the table to explain away hundreds of millions in business contributions to both parties, this won't happen. Instead the GOP leadership has decided to focus on the ridiculous -- The Chinese Subversion of American Democracy!

This strategy will backfire for three reasons. First, Thompson and his gang will be hard-pressed to prove that Democrats rolled over for the People's Republic by trading pro-China policy for cash. Second, the GOP's own Dan Burton, who is chairing the House Committee looking into campaign finance abuses, has himself been accused of shaking down the government of Pakistan for at least $5,000 through its U.S. lobbyist. Third, the Republicans themselves were caught laundering money -- millions -- through Hong Kong by a US businessman who they threw to the dogs when his activities were uncovered during the Dole-Clinton race last year.

Burton, known for wildness, has already been put on a short leash by House Speaker Newt Gingrich. He packed Burton's own committee with some deeper thinkers earlier this year. The Speaker, no tyro in the field of campaign finance scandal, knows well enough that uncontrolled exploration of campaign fundraising strategy will almost definitely re-focus public attention on his own use of charitable corporations to collect money for political purposes -- a crime for which he's already indebted for $300,000 in fines.

The White House has been ultra-smart in handling its own voter-relations. It leaks self-immolating information before Republicans have a chance to announce it. The results have been favorable. Polls show that just about no one cares that the Vice President may have used his White House telephone to raise money, nor do voters care that the President may have phoned a wealthy Maryland businessman, "dialing for dollars" from the Oval Office.

The President's men and women have also proved adept at putting spin on more harmful accusations. Take Yah Lin "Charlie" Trie, the Arkansas restaurant owner who raised a lot of the money now tainted as "Asian." Trie has disappeared, but the perception is that he is a slime who used the financial largesse of others to gain access to the White House without the President's direct knowledge. "After all," the thinking goes, "You can't trust a rat who's deserted the ship."

Speaker Gingrich thinks the President should press the Chinese to "extradite" Trie to the United States for the House and Senate hearings, but Gingrich knows full well that the PRC's cooperation in any American political investigation is unlikely and Trie has not been charged with any crime. The Speaker is whistling Dixie and he knows it.

So, in the end, the hearings may prove to be a bore. Unless a "deep throat" emerges on either side, Americans are due to listen to at least six months of snoring discussions about which telephones politicians are allowed to use, whether or not politicians try to help big fundraisers move ahead in life, whether Chinese money can buy the President of the United States, and why coffee costs so much at the White House.

We already know the answers.

While the hearings should focus almost entirely on the role of mega-business on US foreign and domestic policy, they won't. Both parties benefit extraordinarily from corporate political contributions. So who'll be the first to kill the goose that laid the golden egg?

And so it goes.