Thank you, Roger Tamraz, for offering such valuable insights into how Washington works.
For months, President Clinton’s critics have been dropping the name of Roger Tamraz as if he were the very personification of evil; a shady, international hustler who somehow got into the Clinton White House to meet the president despite warnings from National Security Council officials.
But when Tamraz finally appeared before Sen. Fred Thompson’s committee that is investigating campaign finances, he offered little more than comic relief and a revealing peek into how things really work in Washington–for both political parties!
Question: Did you donate $300,000 to Democratic campaign committees and candidates during the 1996 election cycle to gain access to senior White House officials?
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Answer: Sure, I bought my way in. What of it?
Access, said Tamraz with a smile, was the “only reason.” At the time, he was promoting a plan to build an oil pipeline in Central Asia. To help him get it, he was willing to give a lot of money to both parties–and he did.
With that question settled, the senators didn’t seem to know where else to go. It may be “distasteful” and “unseemly,” in the words of Illinois Sen. Richard Durbin, a Democrat, to give big campaign contributions in exchange for the privilege of rubbing elbows with politicians, but it is not illegal.
Some people think it should be illegal, but most incumbent politicians are not among them. The dirty little secret of the American political system is that it is based on this form of what former-President Jimmy Carter called “legal bribery.”
Besides, Tamraz didn’t appear to get much for his money. He was invited to six social functions at the White House, but he did not get a private meeting with Clinton. Nor did he get the government support he sought for his pipeline venture, which never happened.
That raises a major ethical question: If a gift looks like a bribe but does not lead to a favorable policy change, is it still unethical?
Access, Tamraz said, is its own reward, as long as one’s rivals know you have it. He was just trying to keep up with all the other business people who make big contributions, particularly those in the major oil companies who opposed his pipeline project.
“Who do I meet at the White House but my peers, all the oil company executives,” he said. “So now they know that Roger is also there, so they can’t bluff me. At least I neutralized their position.”
And he would do it again. When Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D–Conn.) asked, “So do you think you got your money’s worth . . . for your $300,000?” Tamraz responded calmly, “I think next time I’ll give out $600,000!”
Amid the laughter that erupted in the hearing room, Lieberman muttered, “Well, don’t give out your phone number.”
But it’s the American way, Tamraz said. “Thank God we are a capitalist society,” he said, “and there’s nothing wrong in running after money.”
No? The scandal here is not in the illegalities. It is in the legalities. There is nothing new about deep-pocket contributors buying access to office holders who then deny to the rest of us that the access is leading to any policy changes. Last year, the Washington Post was reporting how House Majority Whip Tom DeLay of Texas helped boost Republican fundraising to record amounts by circulating lists of “friendly” and “unfriendly” lobbyists based on the size of their donations. Yes, they all do it.
Which leads to another modern truth of politics: Money is not the mother’s milk of modern politics. Advertising–particularly on television–is. TV commercial costs have not gone up appreciably in recent years. It is the candidates who are buying more and more air time. Campaigns have essentially become a war to see which candidate can get the most commercials on the air, and that costs money.
Faced with a record Republican war chest, the Clinton-Gore campaign did all it could to raise as much money as it could just to stay even, as Tamraz said he was trying to do with the oil giants.
There’s a big question as to how Tamraz got in despite warnings from the National Security Council and the vice president’s office. If several high-level folks took the party’s role into consideration in giving Tamraz a pass, it may only show how deeply institutionalized the cash-for-access system has become in Washington.
With the heat on, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott is putting together a new campaign finance reform bill. But watch out for the loopholes. (Plenty were left after the last reform wave in the 1970s, after Watergate.) You can be certain that the “peers” of Roger Tamraz will.