Pay to Play Politics: The Gov Richardson Un-Appointment

Pay to Play Politics: The Gov Richardson Un-Appointment

On Wednesday December 3, 2008 President Elect Barack Obama announced the appointment of New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson as the next Secretary of Commerce.   “As Governor of New Mexico, Bill showed how government can act as a partner to support our businesses, helping create 80,000 new jobs. And under his leadership, New Mexico saw the lowest unemployment rate in decades.” Barack Obama, Chicago, Illinois.    Other press coverage, spun up by the Legacy Media and the Obama transition machine waxed eloquently about Governor Richardson’s qualifications and political career.    So what really happened in New Mexico during six (6) years of one party rule (Democrat) with Governor Richardson at the helm?

            In an exchange of e-mail with Representative Tom Taylor, R-Farmington, who serves as the Minority Leader of the New Mexico House of Representatives, sheds a different light on the results of Governor Richardson’s term in New Mexico.  “They (the Legacy media) didn’t mention in the article that all those wonderful things he did for us (in New Mexico) can’t be afforded.  We have increased (by) 4770 permanent (state of NM) employees or (an increase of) 24% over the last 6 years.   This is going to be interesting (as to whether we can afford this large increase in NM government employees going forward).”  Representative Tom Taylor, R-Farmington, 12.3.08

            Fast-forward one month later to January 5, 2009, and the surprise announcement that Governor Richardson is withdrawing his name from consideration as the next US Department of Commerce Secretary.    What happened in the course of one month?     Or better yet, what has been happening in New Mexico at the Governor’s office over the last 6 years, in particular over the last Presidential election cycle?    Political sources in New Mexico have long held that the Governor was engaged in “pay to play” politics, a term that has received much more use during the on-going Governor Blagojevich corruption scandal unfolding in Illinois.   This light of national press attention on Illinois is proving to be uncomfortable for the Governor of New Mexico.    At issue with Bill Richardson, D-New Mexico, is campaign contributions to Richardson by CDR Financial and state of NM government “sole source/no bid” contracts with CDR Financial, how they were linked and what was expected as a result of the political money flow (from CDR to Richardson).  Since word of a US grand jury investigation leaked out in mid December, the Governor who is usually media savvy, hasn’t been talking.  This silence was broken on Monday, January 5^th during a 7-minute press conference in Santa Fe, NM.  The embattled Governor expressed disappointment in having to step aside, but also steadfastly refused to answer questions related to the CDR investigation. 

Behind the scenes, NM legislators and political operatives in New Mexico are scrambling to prepare for a rough 2009 legislative session, made more challenging with a lame duck Governor now unable to exit to Washington DC during a New Mexico budget crisis.  In the meantime, Lt Governor Diane Denish is engaged in a Governor transition process, predicated on the Guv being appointed as the new Secretary of Commerce (done in early December 2008, but undone in early January 2009).   Time will tell whether this “Denish transition team” effort is premature, but it appears to be on hold as a result of Governor Richardson withdrawing his name from consideration.  Stay tuned, as New Mexico politics at the Roundhouse have been turned upside down prior to an expected 10% shortfall in state revenues for FY 2009/2010.  As a result of the Governor unexpectedly staying in New Mexico, a tough NM legislative session on FY 2009/10 budget issues becomes even more unpredictable.

© 2008, Jasper Welch, Four Corners Media, www.jasperwelch.org

 

            

Mystery Dinner Theatre in Chicago

Mystery Dinner Theatre in Chicago

Reveal and conceal. That is the way mystery dinner theatre is played. Usually four (4) couples, over a multiple course meal, play out a group of characters in a script about a murder mystery. One of the dinner guests is the “who did it” person, but no one knows as the script unfolds. In addition to each player has a character (with a script), with each dinner round having a script in which the player conceals and reveals certain parts of the murder mystery plot. Sounds like what is going on in Chicago now?  With the recent arrest of the Governor of the state of Illinois and his attempt to sell the appointment of the US Senate seat left vacant by President Elect Obama, a real mystery dinner theatre in being played out in the media.

Politico highlights high-ranking Obama Team members and their Chicago ties.
www.politico.com/news/stories/1208/16508.html   This will help you on the characters and the script that is being played out in the media.

For example, what was the role of President Elect Obama’s new chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, a Chicago pol himself? To shed some ‘revealing light’ on that, we look to a Politico report that quotes the outspoken Democrat Governor of Pennsylvania,

Obama has said that nobody on his staff had a role in any wrongdoing. Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell said that the Obama transition team is “making it a four or five or six-day story” because they have not been frank about discussions. 

“Did Rahm Emanuel, who took Rod Blagojevich's seat in Congress, have contact with Rod Blagojevich? Of course he did,” Rendell said in an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “They may have thought he was the craziest S.O.B. in the world. But you still have to have contact with him.”

Let’s see. Another word for “not being frank” is to conceal. So we can see how Mystery Dinner Theatre works in Chicago in their world of politics. And despite the history and reputation of corrupt Chicago politics, Team Obama and the Democrats are doing their best to cast the Governor of Illinois as a crazy man that no one really knows or talks to. Hmmm! So the attempt is to reveal the crazy side of Guv Blago in order to conceal the conservations that Team Obama obviously had with him regarding Obama’s US Senate seat vacancy.

If you’d like some more detail what is being revealed (by non-Obama sources) and what is being concealed (by Team Obama), would should click on the former presidential Hillary Clinton supporters site www.hillaryis44.org This web site, that is run by ardent Hillary supporters has some of the best inside info regarding Obama. Clearly it is written from an anti-Obama viewpoint, but if you look past the bias, it have some very compelling information on the Governor Blago corruption and Team Obama links.

In Mystery Dinner Theatre, there are 4 or 5 rounds played out over the evening meal by (role) players. Each round has surprises, including changes in circumstances and relationships between players (based on the script). So we see the same thing in Chicago politics when Guv Blago goes from the Illinios Governor about to appoint the next US Senator from Illinois to a person non grata with a looming criminal complaint. From the Wall Street Journal www.wsj.com

Still, there was an intriguing bit of backpedaling by an Obama aide. On Nov. 23, ABC's Jake Tapper reports, senior adviser David Axelrod, in an interview on Chicago's WFLD-TV, said of the president-elect: I know he's talked to the governor and there are a whole range of names many of which have surfaced, and I think he has a fondness for a lot of them.
Last night Alexrod released the following statement: I was mistaken when I told an interviewer last month that the President-elect has spoken directly to Governor Blagojevich about the Senate vacancy. They did not then or at any time discuss the subject. One of these statements is false, but which one? The intuitive, if cynical, answer is yesterday's. It is imperative now for Obama to remain unsullied by the scandal, whereas 2½ weeks ago there was no reason for Axelrod not to tell the truth. Wall Street Journal, 12.12.08

So we watch the Chicago mystery dinner theatre play out, with Team Obama cast members scrambling to reveal and conceal their purposes, what they said and what they knew. With the Legacy press caught between trying to shield the President Elect form media scrutiny and really wanting to report a juicy story of Governor intrigue, pay to play politics and Presidential politics, the outcome of this real mystery will be interesting to watch.

Replay that 90's Tape

Replay that 90’s Tape

As the Obama team runs trial balloons on their presidential appointments, the first few don’t appear to be “Change We Can Believe In”, but rather “Replay That 90’s Tape”!     Rather than new faces and new ideas in Washington, President-Elect Obama is floating names and looking to appoint Washington and New York insiders to key positions in the new Obama administration.  In fact, it appears that former members of the Clinton years are reappearing with a regular frequency in an Obama administration.   Even the Obama supporting Washington Post (Pravda on the Potomac) is coming to the President Elect’s defense, “Some critics are unhappy about the number of Clinton administration veterans -- the derogatory word is retreads -- in the new administration. As we've said before, we have no sympathy for this complaint. The best thing the new administration has going for it in comparison to the last Democratic president is the amount of executive branch experience it has to call on. Mr. Obama's willingness to do that and to bring on board those who supported his chief rival -- indeed, to enlist his chief rival herself -- underscores his own confidence.”  Washington Post, 11.22.08, Page A14   www.washingtonpost.com 

         This is the typical liberal and progressive defense offered by the press advocates at the Post.   If your motives are pure and liberal, and we like your progressive policies, then the actual facts on the ground really don’t matter.  And further, the Washington Post editorial writers, use moral leverage, “we have no sympathy for this complaint” (of appointing Clinton retreads).   Rather, the progressive writers compare the replaying of the 90’s tape to the wonderful Obama willingness to appoint his chief rival, none other that Ms. Hillary Rodham Clinton herself as the Secretary of State.

         This is part of the legacy media and Obama team storyline of the “Team of Rivals”, popular book by Doris Kearns Goodwin (2005) about President Lincoln and his cabinet picks in the 1860’s.   This Lincoln-esque approach is being promoted as how the new Obama administration is being put together.    While this story line is classic and lends the Obama as the “next most famous president” imagery to his manufactured resume, even the liberal LA times www.latimes.com is having a hard time swallowing the “team of rivals” story line.

         From the editorial by Matthew Pinsker in the November 18, 2008 edition of the Los Angeles Times, “People love Doris Kearns Goodwin's book on the Lincoln presidency, "Team of Rivals." More important, for this moment in American history, Barack Obama loves it. The book is certainly fun to read, but its claim that Abraham Lincoln revealed his "political genius" through the management of his wartime Cabinet deserves a harder look, especially now that it seems to be offering a template for the new administration.

"Lincoln basically pulled in all the people who had been running against him into his Cabinet," is the way Obama has summarized Goodwin's thesis, adding, "Whatever personal feelings there were, the issue was how can we get this country through this time of crisis."

Matthew Pinsker, a civil war historian concludes the well written editorial, “Over the years, it has become easy to forget that hard edge and the once bad times that nearly destroyed a president. Lincoln's Cabinet was no team. His rivals proved to be uneven as subordinates. Some were capable despite their personal disloyalty, yet others were simply disastrous. Lincoln was a political genius, but his model for Cabinet-building should stand more as a cautionary tale than as a leadership manual.”  LA Times, 11.18.08

         So what will become of the newly minted Obama administration that has a large share of Clinton administration retreads?     How will the 1990’s tape of liberal ideas and policies replay in the context of more challenging 21^st Century problems facing the United States?     What most of our progressive friends and liberal politicos are silent on is the fact that from 1994 to the end of his term (during the impeachment debate), former President Clinton had a more conservative Republican Congress to balance his liberal agenda.   The negotiated policies (reform of welfare, more responsible fiscal policy, a Federal government surplus) of the 1990’s, which the Clintons claim full credit for, were in fact a negotiated bipartisan outcome between a Republican Congress and a Democrat Congress.

The President Elect, in his weekly radio address continues to push the idea of reform and change in Washington, “That is the chance our new beginning now offers us, and that is the challenge we must rise to in the days to come. It is time to act. As the next president of the United States, I will.”   Barack Obama, Saturday 11.22.08

         So in 2009 we are back to one party rule, Democrat style.  This is something the United States hasn’t seen since 1992, or during the “new society” Democratic Lyndon Johnson years.    It appears that we are gearing up to a replay of the early 1990’s.   And it is clear that our new President-Elect will act.   The question is how will a self proclaimed “change” president lead the US forward with a host of 1990’s retreads pulling in the opposite direction.  Or is “change we can believe in” really a move backward “to the 20^th Century past” with Clinton era cabinet appointees? 

© 2008, Jasper Welch, Four Corners Media   www.jasperwelchorg      

So Exactly What Change is Obama Planning On?

So Exactly What Change is Obama Planning On?

         In the American democracy, we are in a debate about ideas.   In the world of Washington, think tanks are where these ideas are tested, propagated, blogged and released to the media.  So what is a think tank?   According to a research study authored by Dr. James McGann of the Think Tank and Civil Societies Project,  “Think tanks are public policy research, analysis and engagement institutions that generate policy-oriented research, analysis and advice on domestic and international issues that enables policymakers and the public to make informed decisions about public policy issues. Think tanks may be affiliated or independent institutions and are structured as permanent bodies, usually a non-profit organization or foundation.”   For more info on the Foreign Policy Research Institute www.fpri.org

         Quick highlights from Dr. McGann’s research on think tanks:  Over 5,000 worldwide, of which 1776 are in the United States, and 91% of these policy influencing organizations were created in the last 50 years.  The United States based think tanks make up about one third of the world’s think tanks.  Among the top thirty think tanks in the United States (as per research by Dr. McGann published under Routlege Research in American Politics, 2007), include the well-known organizations such as the Cato Institute, Manhattan Institute, Brookings Institution, Heritage Foundation, RAND, Urban Institute and the infamous Council on Foreign Relations.

What kind on budget and staffing levels do these think tanks have? University of Michigan has great web resource www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/psthink.html including direct links to home pages to think tanks. Some examples include the Brookings Institute  (founded in 1927, staff of 400, annual budget $48MM), the conservative Heritage Foundation (founded in 1973, staff of 200, annual budget $60MM), the American Enterprise Institute (founded in 1943, staff of 190, annual budget $28MM). 

So what exactly is meant by “Change Has Come to America?  (President Elect Obama’s opening line of his election night address)Let’s look at one of the progressive (liberal) think tanks in Washington DC, which 8 days after the election of Barack Obama, released the Blueprint for the new administration.   It can be found at

www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/2008/changeforamerica/ or you can order online from www.amazon.com    The US think tank behind this Obama blueprint is the Center for American Progress. www.americanprogress.org     According to their web site, the CAP organization was founded in 2003 and is headed by Chicago native John Podesta.    Mr. Podesta is a former Chief of Staff for President Bill Clinton and (surprise) was recently appointed by Barack Obama as the head of his President-Elect transition team.   (See Fox News www.foxnews.com for interview transcripts)   If you’d like to check out John Podesta’s writing (as a liberal progressive), the CAP website has many of his “progressive” white papers.

         Back to the Blueprint.   Here are some pull quotes from the Obama “change book”.   Not exactly conservative policy positions.   The old tired “liberal Democrats policies” are now being recast as “progressive”, thanks to the work of the Center for American Progress.   Here is Obama change, in a politically progressive style we can believe in:

 On immigration, change means “in the short term, the 44th president must shift focus away from destructive workplace and neighborhood raids, and focus instead on abusive employers. This shift should be accompanied by an overhaul of the immigration detention infrastructure” Cecilia Muñoz, a noted immigration expert.

On voting, along the lines of Obama’s favorite group (ACORN) and other voting rights groups, and we quote from the Blueprint: In voting, the new president should lead the fight for universal voter registration, which would add up to 50 million American citizens to the rolls. He should also fix electronic voting and push for public funding of elections, with an emphasis on boosting the power of small contributors. And he can use the bully pulpit to urge the states to curb gerrymandering after the 2010 census and to move to a national popular vote for president. Michael Waldman, executive director of the Brennan Center for Justice at the NYU School of Law.

         On health care, moving to socialized single payer system Making health coverage affordable would expand it, and covering all Americans would, after an up-front investment, reduce system costs. Jeanne Lambrew, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

         So according the Center for American Policy (CAP) blueprint for the 44th President, we are recycling liberal big government ideas from the 20th century under President’s Johnson, Carter and Clinton, and promulgating them as 21st “Change” Obama style.    Actually progressive policies is the term being used, as “liberal” is now out of favor, probably because the American people remember how most of the big government, higher tax “liberal policies” don’t work very well.  The “New Deal” of FDR is an old deal, being recast at the “New Deal” Obama style.   (See the recent Time magazine cover of Obama type cast as FDR)

         Seeing that recycling is a good green approach to the waste paper stream, it is good to see the progressive policies being championed by the Obama transition team that are simply recycled ideas from the last century.    We’ll see if they work (or don’t) this time around.

© 2008, Jasper Welch, Four Corners Media, www.jasperwelch.org