Zusatztext 76118936 Informationen zum Autor Robert G. Kaiser Klappentext With a New Foreword In So Damn Much Money, veteran Washington Post editor and correspondent Robert Kaiser gives a detailed account of how the boom in political lobbying since the 1970s has shaped American politics by empowering special interests, undermining effective legislation, and discouraging the country's best citizens from serving in office. Kaiser traces this dramatic change in our political system through the colorful story of Gerald S. J. Cassidy, one of Washington's most successful lobbyists. Superbly told, it's an illuminating dissection of a political system badly in need of reform.A SCANDAL FOR OUR TIME In the early hours of February 22, 2004a cool, clear, late-winter daycopies of the fat Sunday edition of The Washington Post landed on doorsteps and driveways throughout the nation's capital and its booming suburbs in Maryland and Virginia. Near the top of the front page, an arresting headline announced a scoop: A JACKPOT FROM INDIAN GAMING TRIBES LOBBYING, PR FIRMS PAID $45 MILLION OVER 3 YEARS This was a seductive come-on in a city where making money was in vogue, and the story lived up to the enticement. The Post reported startling details about the exploits of a lobbyist named Jack Abramoff, then forty-six, and a public relations man who collaborated with him, Michael Scanlon, thirty-three. They had persuaded four Indian tribes flush with gambling money to pay huge fees to exploit Abramoff's connections with conservative Republicans in the White House and Congress to protect the tribes' interests. At Abramoff's urging, the tribes also hired Scanlon to do unspecified public relations work. The fees are all the more remarkable because there are no major new issues for gaming tribes on the horizon, according to lobbyists and congressional staff, reported the Post 's Susan Schmidt. Abramoff persuaded the tribes that they needed his help to block powerful forces both at home and in Washington who have designs on their money, Schmidt wrote, quoting members of the tribes to this effect. She disclosed that the four tribes had donated millions of dollars to politicians and causes suggested by Abramoff, and had changed their traditional patterns of political contributions by giving less to Democrats and more to Republicansat his urging. Some members of the tribes Abramoff represented have begun to complain that they are getting little for their money, wrote Schmidt. Neither Abramoff nor Scanlon was a household name in Washington. But Tom DeLay was, and DeLay's name appeared five times in that Post story. DeLay, a successful small businessman who ran an exterminating firm in the suburbs of Houston before he became a politician, was then the most powerful man in Congress. Everyone knew that DeLay had chosen Dennis Hastert of Illinois to become Speaker of the House of Representatives when that job suddenly came open in 1999. DeLay's title was majority leader, technically second-ranking to the speaker, but their colleagues understood that DeLay was smarter and tougher than Hastert, and more influential among House Republicans. In the mid-1990s DeLay and his colleagues in the Republican leadership had struck a bargain with Washington's lobbyists that was both brazen and remarkably successful: if the lobbyists would help raise hundreds of millions of dollars to support Republicans and help preserve their majority in Congress, DeLay would invite them into the legislative process, and allow them to propose entire bills and suggest changes to legislation proposed by others. Both sides fulfilled this understanding with gusto. The Republican National Committee and the party's House and Senate campaign committees, which collected $358 million in contributions in the two years prior to the 1994 elections when...

ldquo;Fascinating and well told. . . . Kaiser amply demonstrates what [money] has done in Washington. . . . Could not be timelier.”
—The Boston Globe
 
“Excellent. . . . Illuminating. . . . Kaiser’s narrative skills are formidable.”
—The New York Review of Books
 
“Masterly. . . . A timely and important read. . . . Kaiser brilliantly succeeds in illuminating the little-known ways that American policy is made, and how well-placed and well-connected people are able to profit from the holes in the American system.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
 
“The biography of Mr. Cassidy is a delight. . . . The twists and turns in [his] career make for engrossing reading . . . Mr. Kaiser enlightens us when he shares the secrets behind a lobbyist’s success.”
—The Wall Street Journal
 
“Penetrating. . . . Kaiser is right . . . in his attempt to attenuate the corrosive links between lobbying and government.”
—The New Republic
 
“Kaiser’s account dwells less on blatant corruption than on what is perfectly, depressingly legal. Lobbyists, for all their policy-shaping aspirations, come across as simple bagmen, conveying cash between buyers in the private sector and all-too-willing sellers in Congress.”
—The New Yorker
 
“Fascinating. . . . This book will help us understand national politics by giving us a close-up look at a key lobbying firm that pioneered the expansion of earmarks.”
—The Washington Post
 
“Kaiser hooks the reader by focusing on Cassidy, grounding an arcane story in the reality of real people sucked in by avarice via mission-creep.”
—Rocky Mountain News
 
“With bold insight and telling detail, Kaiser raises the curtain on Washington to reveal a tragic drama in which money triumphs over principle. Here, in a single book, is the reason why our politics must be transformed.”
—Robert B. Reich, Former U.S. Secretary of Labor and author of Supercapitalism
 
“In-depth and critical. . . . Surely, Washington insiders will rush to bookstores to snatch up Kaiser’s detailed book. . . . Let’s hope that some of those insiders in the [Obama] administration pick up So Damn Much Money and start addressing the problem.”
—St. Louis Post-Dispatch
 
“A triumph. . . . We’re introduced to all the tricks of the lobbying trade; we watch public servants reap private rewards as lobbyists. Is it true elections are bought and sold? It’s all here. . . . Not a pretty tale, but essential reading for today.”
—Providence Journal
 
“Kaiser has written the real story of the breakdown of our political system. In the pages of this enormously important book, we can also glimpse a path toward reform—as a new president and Congress take office.”
—Carl Bernstein, coauthor of All The President’s Men
 
“An accurate and frank description of how lobbyists and money have come to run Washington.”
—Leon E. Panetta, Director of the CIA
 
“The best book ever written about how Washington really works. The careful research and laser perfect writing could change American if enough voters read it. An amazing book.”
—Raymond D. Strother, author of Falling Up
 
“Kaiser takes the reader past the clichés and caricatures of Washington, and tells a very human story. He leaves the reader with an understanding of how it is possible that American government has reached a point where it now struggles to meet our most basic challenges. . . . This is an important and compelling book.”
—Senator Chuck Hagel
 
“Fascinating. . . . [Kaiser] provides a thoroughly researched exposé on the modern lobbying industry in America. . . . This is important reading for understanding the relationship between lobbying, legislation and electi…