My pal Nancy Watzman forwarded this clip from the Daily News on the travels and trysts of our ex-Governor Eliot Spitzer:
“When disgraced Gov. Spitzer arranged hookups with high-priced prostitutes at out-of-state hotels, he would always have another reason to make the trip. Sometimes it was a campaign fund-raiser.
One city where investigators say Spitzer enjoyed a rendezvous with a hooker was Dallas, law enforcement sources said Wednesday. The source would not say exactly when, but a review of Spitzer's campaign finance records reveal he held a fund-raiser at Dallas' elegant Hotel Crescent Court last October.
About 60 people attended, according to Jess Hay, the retired CEO of Lomas Financial Corp., who contributed $1,000 to Spitzer. Hay was surprised to learn about Spitzer's alleged trysts in Dallas.
Gee, and I always thought that the politician was already prostituting himself. As Mark Green pointed out some time ago in a Nation article called "The Evil of Access,"
Senator Zell Miller bluntly described the daily conversations from fundraising cubicles: "I'd remind the agribusinessman I was on the Agriculture Committee; I'd remind the banker I was on the Banking Committee.... Most large contributors understand only two things: what you can do for them and what you can do to them. I always left that room feeling like a cheap prostitute who'd had a busy day."
By the way, if you think the analogy is unfair to prostitutes, who are generally forced by dire circumstances to enter that profession, consider this. Politicians rely on private, self-interested, large donors to finance their campaigns because they don't have any other choice. Either you're rich or you prostrate yourself before a lot of rich people and interest groups. We have good people caught in a bad system.
Though I'm not suggesting that Spitzer started frequenting prostitutes because he thought he would be in good company. I do think that there may be a connection between his getting away with other questionable moves in his public career, and thinking that he could somehow get away with this...
Posted by msifry at March 13, 2008 03:45 PM