Meet the new boss, same as the old boss
…1960s lyric from
”
Won’t Get Fooled Again,
”
by The Who
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss…1960s lyric from “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” by The Who
Meet the new governor, acts a lot like the old governor. That bowdlerized version of a line from The Who’s classic rock song is one thought that might come to mind while perusing the list of major donors and sponsors who turned up for a $1 million-plus fund-raising dinner thrown by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger at a major Los Angeles hotel the other day.
There was Rick Caruso, a Southern California developer and former president of the Los Angeles Police Commission, who has given Schwarzenegger $139,000 so far. Caruso is the same man who in 1996 pledged to raise $250,000 for ex-Gov. Gray Davis.
There was Jerry Perenchio, head of the Univision Spanish-language television network, who has given $792,000 to Schwarzenegger so far and accounted for well over $500,000 in donations to Davis.
And there were Bruce Karatz, chairman and CEO of the KB Homes development firm ($228,000 from the company to Schwarzenegger); attorney Thomas Kranz ($5,000); real estate executives Alan Casden ($50,000) and Jona Goldrich ($10,000); oil executive Ray Irani of Occidental Petroleum ($50,000), and many more.
All were also big Davis donors.
“Arnold likes to say all the time he was elected to represent the people, but these are the people he really represents,” complained Jamie Court, president of the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, a major consumer advocacy group. “They are basically the same people who Davis represented.”
The perception that Davis essentially sold public policy to the highest bidder was one major impetus for the unprecedented recall that ousted him in 2003. Voters were never sure whether the Davis political agenda was his own or that of his big donors.
Now it’s the same with Schwarzenegger. Who benefits if public employee pensions are converted to 401K style accounts managed by brokerage houses? Certainly the brokerage houses, and they contribute heavily to the governor’s various campaign kitties.
Who benefits if nurse-patient ratios are cut, as Schwarzenegger seeks to do? Hospitals, health insurance companies and HMOs. They gave bunches of bucks to Davis and have given Schwarzenegger almost $2 million so far.
Why are the donor lists so similar? Mostly because Schwarzenegger’s agenda essentially dovetails with the wishes of his big donors, precisely as Davis’ did. Which came first? Is it really his agenda or theirs? The fact of the huge fundraising campaign blurs the line so voters can’t really tell, any more than they could with Davis.
Davis always maintained he was completely independent; Schwarzenegger insists “No one can buy me.” Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
“We set records for fund raising,” says Garry South, the longtime chief advisor to Davis. “Who ever would have thought that someone would come along that would make Gray Davis look like a real piker?”
It’s not just that Schwarzenegger raises money the same way Davis did, only more. What’s striking is that to a large extent, he gets the big bucks from the same people.
“This shows that a lot of big-money people are politically androgynous,” said South. “They want influence, so they’ll dump money on Gray or Arnold or whoever takes their place in the future.”
Do they get influence? No politician ever admits it. But for $89,000 at two March dinners for Schwarzenegger, the governor promised private meetings. So even if he’s not selling policy for campaign donations, as some former Davis hands concede the ex-governor did, Schwarzenegger at least is selling face time. Can he be influenced during that time? He scoffs at the notion, but the prisons are full of people who maintain they committed no crimes.
The real question here is how, if Schwarzenegger takes cash from the same people Davis tapped, the new governor can be very different from the old. The answer may be that while Schwarzenegger is without any doubt a far better showman than the basically shy Davis, he’s not conducting himself very differently at all.
Which means that, as the old saying goes, the more things change, the more they stays the same.
(For a list of Gov. Schwarzenegger’s top 100 campaign donors, go to http://www.arnoldwatch.org/special_interests/index.html)
