Hightower Lowdown

There'll be a crush of cameras at the front door of the White House on January 20 as scores of media outlets scramble to record the moment that the new president walks in. But, wait--who're those people who'll be sliding in quietly behind him? They're the ones who'll spend the next four years whispering in the president's ear, sitting in strategy sessions, running presidential councils, filling agency slots, and pulling the levers of executive power. They'll make up "The Administration," and they'll affect everything from economic policies to war, so it's worth getting a sense of them in advance of the election.

For a clue as to what kinds of people either McCain or Obama would carry into office, look at the top campaign advisors, fund raisers, and staffers already around them, for they're likely to move right along with their man. These people both reflect and shape a president's agenda, sometimes wielding the influence to alter both the overall direction and specific substance of a presidency.

Take the corporatization of Bill Clinton's administration. He had run a populist-minded campaign in 1992, pledging to challenge corporate greed and promising to be the president of working families. Come '93, however, such corporate hands as Robert Rubin were awarded strategic positions. A prince of Wall Street who'd been one the campaign's top fund raisers, Rubin was ensconced as head of Clinton's economic council--and he served there as corporate America's inside hit man, responsible for taking populist proposals down into a dark basement and throttling them.

In his first State of the Union speech, for example, Clinton proposed that tax write-offs for a corporate CEO's bloated paycheck be limited to "only" the first million bucks. The very next night, CEOs of several major corporations swarmed Rubin at a Manhattan dinner, wailing about Clinton's "cheap populism." Rubin, who'd been a $26-million man at Goldman Sachs, definitely felt their pain, and he smoothed their ruffled feathers with these words: "That's not the real Bill Clinton."

Apparently not. With Rubin counseling that it wasn't good to make CEOs jittery, Clinton immediately dropped the idea. He never brought it up again.

"Tell me with whom you walk," goes the old adage, "and I'll tell you who you are." Who is walking with McCain and Obama? While it's fun to speculate about who might be the vice-president choices of this year's candidates (and you can join the fun on page 3), it's more instructive to rummage through the names on the campaign teams to see who might go inside with the winner. This month we'll give you a tour of Obama's brain trust, and in the August issue we'll look into the McCain campaign.

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Dallas Oilman H.L. Hunt was a billionaire in a time when such massive wealth was unusual, back in the 1950s and '60s. H.L. was also politically bonkers--so far out there on the right-right-right wing that he considered Dwight Eisenhower a commie. In 1960, Hunt published a novel called Alpaca, in which he set forth his utopian vision for the governance of America. In the happy plutocratic kingdom he envisioned, the richer you are, the more votes you get.

Alas, poor H.L. couldn't get any sane people to take him seriously back then. Yet over the years, his wealthatopian fantasy has steadily crept into our political reality, becoming incorporated in today's campaign-funding system. As we've seen in both congressional and presidential races, money doesn't merely talk, it shouts, and it's been drowning out the voice of the people on issue after issue. While wealthy donors make up only a fraction of one percent of the population, they have gained a bigger vote in national public policy than the electorate at large.

The system unabashedly teaches that money is the ballot that counts and big donors are the citizens who matter. This is why a majority of Americans have become disenchanted-- to disgusted with politics during the past few decades. It's also why there is growing support for publicly financed campaigns, which grassroots groups have pushed through in seven states, stretching from Maine to Arizona.

Which brings us to this year's presidential run. While the bulk of the media attention has been on such weighty matters as who's wearing or not wearing flag lapel pins, there's been little focus on the back rooms where the money is being raised. So, in this issue of the Lowdown, we take a peek, finding the predictable, the ironic, and the surprising. [ read more ]

IN A SEASON THAT SHOULD BE CONVIVIAL AND COMFORTING -- filled with family, friends, fun, spiritualism, good food, song, and high spirits--what I am hearing instead from across the country is a surge of angst and discouragement. In conversations, calls, emails, and letters, people in general (and progressives in particular) are expressing profound dismay at the deterioration of America's democracy, not only because of the BushCheney regime, but also, and especially, because of the fecklessness of the Democratic Congress.

"For crying out loud! Why do we even bother to have elections?" Mark wailed in an email.

I am afraid of what this country has become and that at any minute the people in charge may bomb Iran, and I have lost all hope that there will be any checks and balances," Marshaleigh wrote, adding bluntly, "Congress doesn't work."

"I was amazed that the Republicans in Congress were willing to hand over their own power to the executive branch," said an email from Brian. "But I have been incredibly disappointed that the Democrat-majority Congress has not only failed to stop Bush's power grab, but has actually continued to help him do it, even passing laws to legitimize his illegal domestic spying."

My niece Lisa, incredulous at the Democrats' cave-in to the Mukasey nomination, left this message on my answering machine:

"I do not understand something I just heard on the radio, and I wanted it explained to me. How is it that they are saying that they probably are going to confirm this man when he has come out and said he believes in expansive presidential powers, and basically didn't answer the question when they asked him straight out whether or not simulated drowning was torture? And they said they'll still probably support him? What! Unh! OK. That's it. Bye." [ read more ]