Return-Path: <nifl-ld@literacy.nifl.gov> Received: from literacy (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by literacy.nifl.gov (8.9.3/8.9.0.Beta5/980425bjb) with SMTP id SAA29328; Fri, 26 May 2000 18:11:37 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 26 May 2000 18:11:37 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <9a.557e49a.26604f39@aol.com> Errors-To: listowner@literacy.nifl.gov Reply-To: nifl-ld@literacy.nifl.gov Originator: nifl-ld@literacy.nifl.gov Sender: nifl-ld@literacy.nifl.gov Precedence: bulk From: DJWorkHome@aol.com To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-ld@literacy.nifl.gov> Subject: [NIFL-LD:2860] An Issue of Conscience. X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Mailer: AOL 5.0 for Windows sub 105 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Status: O Content-Length: 11775 Lines: 209 Dennis Jaffe May 26, 2000 Dennis Jaffe is a former Executive Director of Common Cause New Jersey, a citizens organization promoting integrity in the political process. Jaffe is releasing this only as a private citizen. Further information is being posted at http://riskybiz.cjb.net. Monday, my father summed up NJ's Democratic Party: "morally bankrupt." We were discussing the U.S. Senate campaign. Jon Corzine, former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the investment firm Goldman Sachs, is running against former Governor Jim Florio. This election is very troubling. The Center for Analysis of Public Issues reported in April that Goldman Sachs ousted Corzine as CEO in 1999 after incurring half a billion dollars in trading losses. NJ Reporter cites Lisa Endlich's Goldman Sachs:The Culture of Success. "Some banking partners felt that rather than be elevated, (he) should have been made to bear some responsibility for the firm's troubles, many of which originated in his division." There's more. NJ Reporter's Barbara Fitzgerald wrote, "When Corzine (first) arrived, there were nine people in the department. One day, seven of them got up and walked out." In 1994, he became CEO. Some executives wanted out of the firm, Endlich writes, because of the "risky trading Corzine had supervised ... 36 partners left and withdrew their capital." Yet, Corzine, reported Fitzgerald, "was credited with raising the company's morale and employing better risk management procedures." Robert Rubin, former Treasury Secretary under President Clinton, praised Corzine. "I think he was a terrific leader." Weeks after Corzine's forced retirement, U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg announced he would not seek re-election. An American success story like Lautenberg, Corzine began to explore a run for the seat. He hadn't voted in a primary since 1988, (NJ Reporter). His November election voting record was mediocre. But in 1999, NJ Democratic insiders went "gaga" over Corzine, who had given big bucks to Democrats outside NJ. His new-found eagerness to distribute his financial resources to local Democrats was greeted by cash-strapped party leaders with outstretched hands. Now, Corzine is under fire for an obscene tactic he privately initiated over a year ago. Tapping resources of his own and of key allies, he strategically steered over half a million dollars to targeted party officials responsible for picking the candidate who receives party backing and superior ballot position. His gifts amounted to over $1,000 a day for over a year. Bergen Democrats received $90,000. Hudson Democrats … $65,000. Democrats in Union … $50,000. Middlesex … $30,000. Mercer … $20,000. Corzine: "that's the way you encourage other people to feel good about you." (New Jersey Reporter, April 2000) I find it offensive. But those county party leaders endorsed him - and gave him a huge built-in competitive advantage. Two Congressmen and a prominent attorney were pushed out of the race. Since 1982, Frank Lautenberg, a longtime loyal Democrat, has financed his U.S. Senate campaigns with millions of his own dollars for TV ads. So what's the difference between his campaigns and Corzine's? It isn't that Corzine is shattering spending records - including the $30 million spent by California Republican Michael Huffington, who spent $8 million to win his 1994 U.S. Senate. What he has done is unprecedented. Unparalleled. Never done before. The significance of what has been going on has simply not been conveyed to New Jerseyans. If Corzine hadn't first contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to party insiders, his candidacy would have been doomed. Why has he given so much money to party leaders who have endorsed him? Why? Why has he given so little money to those insiders who have not endorsed him? Why? If there were no opportunity to receive a party line endorsement, does anyone think Jon Corzine and his top backers would have contributed such huge amounts of money to local officials? Based on the incredibly successful results Corzine had with his private tactic with political insiders, why didn't he continue handing out contributions to the rest of the citizens of the state? It has been projected by the Associated Press that he will spend about $100 per vote in this election. That's beyond the pale! It's not worse than, more obscene than, or scarier than what's been done before. It's incomparable. Instead of spending $30 million or $100 per vote to tell the public how much he cares about doing social good, why didn't he just send everybody a check? The answer is that that would have exposed what he was doing. The Democratic Party once prided itself in being "for the little guy, " supposedly committed to giving families the best shot at living "the American Dream." The party appears to be more committed to providing opportunity for multi-millionaires, bond houses, and real estate developers. The June 6th primary election to nominate a successor to U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg is a contest between rank-and-file Democrats and Wall Street businessmen seducing party insiders with tempting offers of cash to arouse their affection. It is more than just a contest between Florio and Corzine. It's about the soul of the Democratic Party. About its very reason for being. Mr. Corzine comes across as a likable, successful guy. A bold liberal favoring wealth redistribution, universal gun registration, universal health care, gay marriage, and free college education for high school students graduating with a B average. Florio isn't "warm and fuzzy." Say what you want, but even a conservative Republican legislature kept in tact most of the "Florio $2.8 billion tax increase." It's easy to attack him as an arrogant taxer. But Republican legislators didn't come close to honoring its promise to "roll back the Florio tax increase." Florio can also play ugly. A pro-Corzine state senator lost a legal appointment with Florio allies. Florio has blemishes, too. But what has transpired between Corzine and local Democratic insiders is an unprecedented poisoning of our political system. It is incomparable. Nominating a Democrat for U.S. Senate shouldn't be about privately auctioning off endorsements to a rich, unemployed Wall Street executive, whose firm was a lead underwriter for Republican Governor Whitman's $2.8 billion bond act - the largest state bond at that time in U.S. history. It should be about a platform of ideas and principled beliefs. At least the GOP wears its Wall Street stripes on its sleeves. The Democrats may talk "working class," but their behavior reeks of big money. Mr. Corzine's refusal to join Florio in a debate sponsored by the NJ League of Women Voters and ABC-TV is the height of arrogance. His voting record is embarrassing. His private campaign methods are obscene. The Democratic Party's selling of its soul to Wall Street is sad and hypocritical. Some Democrats say they're for Corzine because they want to win. Can you imagine Al Gore and Jon Corzine teaming up on campaign finance reform? I mean in favor of it! >From a more personal perspective, as a Jew, I am particularly disappointed in the Anti-Defamation League for establishing one standard on how to respond to insensitive statements by the rich and powerful, and another on how to respond to everyone else. The Rev. Jesse Jackson gets the third degree when he makes a comment about "Hymietown." But Jon Corzine is given a free pass when he reportedly makes comments about Italian-Americans being freed from jail by Jewish lawyers. According to the New Jersey Jewish News, Corzine has given huge contributions to the ADL. Shame on them. As a gay man, I am also in disbelief that a man who networks well in Washington, D.C. and on Wall Street can come out of nowhere to gain the endorsement of a brand-new NJ organization named Stonewall Democrats. Corzine has promised this newly-created organization to support gay marriage. I applaud him for that. I don't have confidence he has the political persuasive skills to advance this cause. Florio said he's not prepared to support gay marriage and admitted it might be due to generational differences. For crying out loud, former Governor Florio signed one of the first statewide civil rights acts in this country protecting gays and lesbians from discrimination. >From Jews to Italians to high school drop-outs, Mr. Corzine seems to say a lot of risky things. It is beyond me - simply beyond me - that he could get away with describing high school graduates who didn't go to college, and high school drop-outs as "reprobates," which the dictionary defines as "morally unethical." Former U.S. Senator Bill Bradley, in his presidential bid, powerfully preached "Politics should be about the power of ideas, not the size of one's wallet." NJ and our nation need to hear Bill Bradley's voice. The Democratic Party needs to be reclaimed by rank-and-file Democrats, and taken away from the gripping control of big money. The sad state of affairs is that too many Democratic officials - no different than the Republicans - are beholden to party leaders who have given them jobs, and the citizens of this state have been done a terrible disservice. The state's voters have been denied the opportunity to hear the ideas and platforms of a number of accomplished Democratic officials - like Congressmen Bob Menendez and Frank Pallone - because insiders traded endorsements for huge infusions of cash for their campaigns. The money newly given to local Democrats by a candidate whose firm was hired to administer the largest statewide bond issue in our nation's history when it was enacted, who then publicly said the bond issue was not in the best interests of the taxpayers, and who hasn't voted in years truly signifies a poisoning of the political system. It makes clear the need to eliminate NJ's party line endorsement primary system. It makes clear we need a resurgence of local citizen activism more than ever before. Jon Corzine told NJ Reporter, "I am a risk taker." How can NJ citizens afford to risk their futures with Jon Corzine after even Goldman Sachs dismissed him on the heels of a $500 million trading loss? Corzine's and Democratic officials' actions have disgraced NJ before the nation. Tuesday, June 6th, rank-and-file Democrats can signal that they are taking back the party by turning out in record numbers to cast the best vote they can in this election. We have much work to do to take back this democracy from the grip of big money politics. We can succeed. We can't afford the risk of letting it continue. Now is the time in history to re-assert citizen control of government. NJ is the place. The real truth about the unprecedented poisoning of our political system as has taken place in this election provides an unprecedented opportunity to make the case to the American people that our quality of life is inextricably intertwined with the challenge we face of cleaning up the American political system. Those who control the purse strings of political campaigns exercise power in controlling our government. It's that simple. Citizens are upset about bad TV commercials - and more so about maybe paying for them. But, as long as the rich and powerful finance campaigns, the quality of life that citizens are entitled to shall be sacrificed, and the quality of life for contributors will be enhanced. Citizen financing needs to begin locally. We need to re-build our democracy from the ground up. Let the clean-up begin. A finer man than Bill Bradley to lead this effort, there is not.
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