Did Hillary Buy More Endorsements In South Carolina?
On Monday, I posted about the curious relationship between the Hillary Clinton campaign and Darrell Jackson, an African-American state legislator from South Carolina who had surprised some by endorsing Hillary over John Edwards and Barack Obama. Robert Ford, another black legislator in the same state, joined Jackson in dumping Edwards for Hillary, and explained that an Obama-led ticket would get killed in a general election. However, it turned out that Jackson had more mercenary motives for his endorsement of Hillary -- namely, a $10,000-per-month consulting contract.
Today, Hillary faces new questions about other South Carolina endorsers who also will benefit from the same consultancy:
Two more black South Carolina lawmakers endorsing Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton have ties to a media consulting firm hired by the White House hopeful.However, both the lawmakers and the campaign said Thursday their support has nothing to do with any business dealings.
Clinton's campaign announced this week that state Reps. David J. Mack III of North Charleston and Terry Alexander of Florence, along with several other black politicians, had endorsed Clinton for president. ...
Mack and Alexander operate offshoots of Sunrise Communication of Columbia, which is owned by influential state Sen. Darrell Jackson. The connection was first reported by The (Columbia) State in Thursday's newspapers.
Jackson said last week he would endorse Clinton, and then revealed that his firm was being paid $10,000 a month to help her South Carolina operation. Both Jackson and the Clinton campaign have denied a connection between his endorsement and the contract.
The legislators all assure their constituents that their enthusiasm for Hillary has nothing to do with the fact that she's stuffing their pockets full of cash. They claim that they believe Hillary will be the best candidate for the Presidency. One of them offered as an explanation that he had "been following her for a long time," as if Hillary had been difficult to find.
It's hard to come up with any explanation other than payoffs. Politicians issue endorsements all the time without getting hired as consultants; they wind up working as figurehead "chairs" of campaign committees, which allows them to extend their own influence in the party. They don't get hired as paid consultants, which brings up all sorts of potential conflicts of interest.
Rarely has bagman politics been played out so publicly. It's a measure of the Democratic Party that Hillary feels comfortable enough to think she will get away with it.
UPDATE: It appears that Obama tried playing bagman politics, too, but didn't have the bigger bags necessary.
Posted by Ed Morrissey on February 22, 2007 7:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (6)
