Talking Points Memo’s David Kurtz wonders if there’s something a little wrong with becoming President, using the fame attendant with having been President to build a massive fortune, and then spending that fortune to attempt to get your wife elected President.
He also brings up the point that accepting fees for speaking and then loaning that money to a political campaign seems to exploit the campaign finance laws in a pretty obvious way. If I’m a billionaire, I can donate a maximum of $2,300 to Hillary Clinton’s campaign, or I can hire her husband to speak at a corporate meeting for as much as I like, and he can then loan that money to her campaign with no expectation of repayment. That doesn’t sound right to me.
May 13, 2008 at 12:02 pm
On the first point: Is there anything wrong with being a bootlegger and using your fortune to get your son elected president?
On the second point: It’s an obvious back-door bribe. But then, it’s not anything new to that world.