The Buying of the President 2004: Where the Candidates, Including Bush, Get Their Money--And What Strings Are Attached [Paperback]

Lewis, the head of the Center for Public Integrity, relates fascinating facts about how the big money of special interests is the big stick that generates the necessary talk to achieve results. One does not even have to talk loudly, just incessantly enough to achieve the objective at hand, bolstered by the big stick of unceasing gobs of cash. He lets us know, for instance, that 40 members of the U.S. Senate are millionaires. These are people highly familiar with big money and its useful application. He also informs us that surveys indicate that the candidates raising the largest amounts of money will be the respective nominees of the Democrats and Republicans at election time. He cites an example of one candidate who pocketed money from a pharmaceuticals company and earned it by speaking on the industry's behalf while he was running for office.

In a recent interview with Bill Moyers on PBS, Lewis conceded that it was difficult to remain optimistic in the floodtide of corporate dominance through the purse string. All the same, he noted, seeing just how outrageously the system operates energizes him to make efforts to inform the public about the calamity we face.

Abraham Lincoln and Harry Truman have been mentioned repeatedly in civics books to demonstrate to youngsters that with hard work and application an individual from modest roots can reach the presidency. The staggering reality today is that many politicians have become no more than unblushing bag men. Such is the case with the presidency itself as George W. Bush spends a significant amount of time away from his White House desk, picking up vasts sums of money at quick stops. It was suggested recently that perhaps he can avoid the facade of speaking at a dinner where donations are given, saving time by just grabbing the money and moving on to his next stop.

Lewis notes that there is an inverse relationship between the overpowering dominance of big money in campaigns and the participation of citizens. Many, understandably, after observing the travesty of money chases masquerading as American democracy, opt out of the system altogether. As the money influence grows, more citizens stay home on election day, a sad and tragic consequence of a system that has run amuck as quests for public office have degenerated into special interest bidding wars.

"Buying of the President 2004" runs nearly 500 pages, and I can honestly say I learned something new on nearly every page. The book begins with a series of three loosely connected essays about the state of the American electoral system, surveying the wreckage of the 2000 campaign (from the Bush teams coyly racist ploy to subvert John McCain in Arizona), to the 2000 election aftermath (you'll be surprised at the extent of voter disfranchisement in Florida), to which major corporations fund which parties. Most shocking is that News Corp -- the people who brought you Fox News Channel -- rank among the Democrats' top 50 donors over the last quarter century, but not among the Republicans'. BOP04 names the corporate names, and provides the dollar figures.

The second portion of the book is the political expose on President Bush -- from his New England birth and sheltered Yale education, to his disastrous years as an oil magnate, to his riding ownership of the Texas Rangers all the way to the Governor's mansion and beyond. His presidency is coolly dissected, contribution by contribution, dollar by dollar. You will feel positively unclean after reading these chapters, especially if you voted for him based solely on his debate platform and his "compassionate conservative" campaign talk.

But, BOP04 is not merely partisan slash work. The ten declared Democratic presidential candidates for 2004 are also taken apart by the same dispassionate, and at times sarcastic, eye. The most interesting chapters detail Dennis Kucinich's rocky political career, and Al Sharpton's bizarre financial dealings. The chapters on John Kerry and John Edwards are most significant now. Neither candidate is revealed to be special-interest-free. These chapters come highly recommended, especially as a lot of this information is still not well known out on the stumps.

The book's conclusion is grim. The writing begins to get carried away, especially with the reference to Todd Beamer on the final two pages. They'd already made their point quite clearly through the previous 500 pages. It's hard to wrestle with the facts and dollar signs presented in this book. The real question of the election season then, is not "Is my candidate truly indepedent?", but rather, "Am I comfortable with giving my candidate's financial backers access to the Oval Office?"

That may not be what the Founding Fathers envisioned (or maybe it is). Reading BOP04 did not cause me to change the lever I will pull in my party's primary (or in November), but I do feel a much more informed citizen for having read it.