Neptunus Lex

The sordid little tale of Democratic fundraiser Norman Hsu as linked from Glen(n)’s place gets every day more and more bizarre. It’s now clear that this particular Ponzi scheme con man never changed his game, only the way the game was played.

A Laguna Beach investment firm filed a lawsuit against Democratic fundraiser Norman Hsu on Friday, claiming he defrauded investors out of at least $23 million and required them to donate to Democratic candidates.According to the lawsuit filed by Briar Wood Investments, Hsu persuaded the company’s operator to do business with him by taking him to star-studded Democratic Party events. There, the 56-year-old Hong Kong native was praised by New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, California Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown and others, the lawsuit said.

As a condition of doing business with the fundraiser, Hsu directed investors to make contributions to certain Democratic candidates, the lawsuit said. The investors turned over tens of thousands of dollars, including $30,000 worth of checks to Clinton’s campaign on a single day.

I don’t know whether Hsu had any real commitment to to Democratic party politics, but it’s very clear he had a deep and meaningful commitment to self-enrichment without having to do all of the work of actually earning it. He strong armed donors to provide cash to political candidates, through which he acquired the kind of political “juice” that enabled him to go after ever more wealthy donors. Using his enhanced status - not everyone gets to be called a “Hill Raiser” - he could then merge the political donors into his personal Ponzi schemes, thereby lining his own pockets.

Campaign donations serve not only as the fuel for candidate issue ads and pay for travel from Washington to obscure Iowa farming towns. The ability to accumulate cash serves a critical role as a proxy for pre-primary campaign viability. It’s the political equivalent of Hsu’s Ponzi scheme: If you can’t shake people down for money at the same rate as the other front runners, then you aren’t a “serious” candidate, and you’ll find it increasingly difficult to sign on donors and professional staff.

Simply put, in a deadly serious competition for limited resources, the candidates cannot afford to scrutinize their donation sources too closely.

Money is the problem. If we can reduce the impact of war chests on the political psyche we can make rising to leadership of the free world something other than a grubby little cash grab contest.

As mentioned above, there are three ostensible reasons for campaign cash, and one overriding referent one:

1)  To fund campaign adverstising on legacy media.
2) To pay quality, professional campaign staff.
3) To pay for travel expenses while a candidate and his staff canvass the country.
4) As a proxy for electability.

The solution? Every candidate must be a blogger!

A real blogger I mean. As a primary method of reaching out and touching people.

Reason number one is the real money sump, but TV and paper media ads are so pre-Web2.0. In a TiVo world, no one watches commercials anymore (that hasn’t already made their minds up) and print media is everywhere in retreat. You’d still have to pay for staff and travel, but that could be done through (transparent) website donations. Money would still matter, but hit counts and cross-posts as a proxy for popularity could become as important to the national political discourse - and an arguably more reliable and thoughful indicator -¬† as filthy lucre is today.

Furthermore, there are no real barriers to entry. Anyone who cannot set up a website with audio and video isn’t trying hard enough. Imagine what fun we could have, once we shattered the gatekeeper’s box!

The only real downside is that high speed internet access would represent a kind of Jim Crow of its own. But looking on the bright side, I know of a certain blogger that will looking for work come spring of 2008.

So. Whaddaya think?