Tim Rutten: In This Election, Follow the Money
[Tim Rutten is a columnist for LA Times.]
The emergence of the neo-populist "tea party" has been the big story of this election cycle. After the votes are cast in November, we may realize that the political resurgence of big business and great wealth was far more significant in determining election outcomes.
To an extent not seen in generations, companies and wealthy investors with a naked economic interest in influencing election results are pouring money into races....
The Civil Service Reform Act of 1883 was supposed to put an end to the spoils system that had prevailed since Andrew Jackson's presidency. For much of the 19th century, both parties supported their candidates and campaigns by distributing patronage and government contracts. When reform ended that, there was nowhere for the parties to turn but to big business and to the all but unregulated industrialists and financiers who captained it through the Gilded Age. This new relationship between partisanship and unfettered capitalism would reach its apogee in Calvin Coolidge's famous remark that "the business of America is business."
The real architect of all this was the brilliant Ohio financier Mark Hanna, who pulled together big money's contributions to create the first truly modern national campaign on behalf of William McKinley's successful run for the presidency in 1896. Hanna once remarked: "There are two things that are important in politics. The first is money and I can't remember what the second one is."
Read entire article at LA Times
The emergence of the neo-populist "tea party" has been the big story of this election cycle. After the votes are cast in November, we may realize that the political resurgence of big business and great wealth was far more significant in determining election outcomes.
To an extent not seen in generations, companies and wealthy investors with a naked economic interest in influencing election results are pouring money into races....
The Civil Service Reform Act of 1883 was supposed to put an end to the spoils system that had prevailed since Andrew Jackson's presidency. For much of the 19th century, both parties supported their candidates and campaigns by distributing patronage and government contracts. When reform ended that, there was nowhere for the parties to turn but to big business and to the all but unregulated industrialists and financiers who captained it through the Gilded Age. This new relationship between partisanship and unfettered capitalism would reach its apogee in Calvin Coolidge's famous remark that "the business of America is business."
The real architect of all this was the brilliant Ohio financier Mark Hanna, who pulled together big money's contributions to create the first truly modern national campaign on behalf of William McKinley's successful run for the presidency in 1896. Hanna once remarked: "There are two things that are important in politics. The first is money and I can't remember what the second one is."