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In
the movie "Pretty Woman," Richard Gere
asks Julia Roberts how much she costs for the whole
night. Julia blows her now famous chewing-gum bubble
and, on the road to Hollywood super-stardom, says
it's more than he can afford. When Gere's character
persists, she finally says $300 dollars. By the
movie's end, the Beatles were proven wrong when they
sang, "Money Can't Buy Me Love."
So
much for Hollywood endings. In the real world, it is
now clear that Larry Sabato, the University of
Virginia political science professor and the state's
most-quoted professorial pontificator, could have
taught Ms. Roberts a thing or two she didn't learn
from ex-fiancee Kiefer Sutherland. Despite the
state's huge budget deficits and claims by the
politicians in Richmond that they had no choice --
in the phrase of Sen. John Chichester,
R-Fredericksburg -- but to cause real
"pain" by cutting services to average citizens, Sabato
persuaded our elected officials to
give him over $400,000 in the 2003 General Assembly
session for some pet projects.
Admittedly,
Sabato wasn't the only highly quoted, self-described
"objective" political analyst getting big
bucks from the politicians he is supposedly
fearlessly analyzing: Professor Robert Holsworth, a
public policy professor at Virginia Commonwealth
University, also got six figures in earmarked state
cash for his public policy center.
As Sarah Jessica Parker might ask at the start of the
next episode of Sex in the City: When someone gives
you a lot of money, what do they really think they
are really buying?
Professor Sabato and Dr. Holsworth would have you
believe their roles as political analysts are not even
slightly compromised by their acceptance of hundreds
of thousands of state cash. Yet, in another context,
they no doubt suggest, if not require, that their
students and other budding political experts read
Professor Charles Beard's seminal work An
Economic Interpretation of the Constitution,
focusing on the seeming role of economic
self-interest in the actions of even our most
revered politicians.
So, the tough but fair and necessary question needs
to be asked: How can individuals dependent, in some
significant measure, upon state largesse be assumed
to be objectively commenting upon the very
politicians who control these purse strings?
That question arose recently when Mr. Sabato went to
Fredericksburg to give his take on the June 10th GOP
primary contest between Senate Finance Chairman John
Chichester and his election opponent, Mike Rothfeld.
(For
purposes of full disclosure, I feel obligated to
state -- lest someone think I am hiding anything --
that 18 years ago, Professor Sabato called Mr.
Chichester a "sure winner," or words to
that effect, in a race in which I was the campaign
manager for the other candidate. Mr. Sabato and I
got into a few words over what he was saying about
my candidate, and I was told he actually consulted a
lawyer to see if he could sue me for libel and
slander, which of course he couldn't because all I
had done was tell the truth, as the facts proved
about a year later.)
Today, Larry and I are friends, and he is as good a
professor of government as you will find in the
country. I can think of no one better to teach my
son about political theory and install in him an
appreciation for the importance of being an active
participant in political affairs with a commitment
to making a positive difference.
I
do not question Larry or Bob's integrity, as I know
both of them to be good, honorable people. They are
both great assets to Virginia, as educators and
human beings.
But I do not believe you can improve the state of
things political when you have a double standard,
one for those favored by the political elite and
another for the rest of the citizenry.
Thus, the growing interdependence of the Iron
Triangle in Richmond between lobbyists, elected
officials and allegedly fearless political
commentators and members of the media, is a great
concern to those of us who have actually fought on
the front lines to change the status quo in Virginia
politics.
Why? Because the cynicism of too many of Virginia's
political elite is the drug causing much of the
apathy and lack of leadership plaguing our state's
political system.
Richard Gere thought Julia Roberts had her price,
and she did.
When
Professor Sabato went to Fredericksburg to declare
that Mr. Chichester was the likely winner of
Tuesday's primary and said that the GOP finance
chief had huge amounts of "seniority" and
"power" that awed even the state's most
renown pundit, he was in effect endorsing the
senator's campaign. Mr. Chichester surely took
notice, as I was told he was in the audience, along
with is buddy House of Delegates Speaker William
Howell, R-Fredericksburg.
Now, it may be pure coincidence that Mr. Chichester
helped Mr. Sabato get his $400,000 at time when the
politicians in Richmond were again balancing the
budget on the backs of those struggling up the
ladder
of success. Moreover, it may be that despite all the
state's budget difficulties, legislators deemed the
funding of Mr. Sabato's pet projects a higher
priority than funds for projects for some needy and
vulnerable Virginians. Additionally, I cannot blame
Sabato or anyone for pleading their own case, as we
are all human after all.
But this fact remains: no reporter or news
organization would ever consider any lobbyist, any
private corporate executive, or even a public
interest group getting hundreds of thousands of
dollars from the state's top elected politicians for
a pet project to be an objective source. This is
self-evident.
Indeed, the General Assembly's own conflict-of-
interest
rules would not allow either professor -- should
they ever be elected to serve -- to vote on measures
giving them money others do not get. So, I ask: Do
they not have the same conflict when commenting on
the performance of those voting to give them this
money?
I
enjoyed "Pretty Woman." But what I see in
Virginia -- the Iron Triangle strangling the efforts
to fix our budget and other problems -- is pretty
ugly, especially given the price tag to the
hard-pressed Virginians being made to pay the bill.
--
June 9, 2003
(c) Copyright. All rights reserved. Paul Goldman.
2003.
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