COMMENTARY | In another hint of a presidential campaign that could have been, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has published an oped in the Wall Street Journal in which she takes aim at honest graft in the Congress.
Working off the findings in a new book by one of her advisers, Peter Schweizer, “Throw Them All Out,” Palin describes how members of Congress can enrich themselves with what amounts to insider trading, based on knowledge and control of pending legislation. Members of Congress also take gifts of IPO stock from lobbyists and use their control of legislation to extort money from corporations who might be affected.
The revelations contained in Schweizer’s book may constitute the House Bank and House Post Office-style scandals of the upcoming election cycle. The House Bank, which was run and regulated by the House, allowed massive overdrafts by members from their accounts far in excess of what would have been permissible for ordinary people. The House Post Office scandal involved embezzlement and corruption on the part of post office employees for the benefit of House members. Despite the efforts of the then-Democratic House leadership to suppress the investigations, the scandals helped to contribute to the Gingrich revolution that swept Republicans into control of Congress for the first time in 40 years.
What angered people about the House Bank and the House Post Office and what is angering people now about honest graft in Congress is that spectacle of the peoples’ representatives getting away with things that the rest of us would go to jail for. Palin, who fought corruption in Alaska politics, is well aware of this. Therefore her outrage is going to be reflected in that of millions of people.
This development and the Wall Street Journal article must make many people wonder how a Palin for president campaign would have used the issue. Honest graft in congress would seem to be a killer issue for any outside politician running. Palin could well have ridden it to the White House.
Which presidential candidate is best positioned to take up the issue of honest congressional graft? Newt Gingrich might be, perhaps, because he became speaker on a reformist agenda before. Herman Cain is another possible beneficiary. He has never held political office and therefore had not had the opportunity to be corrupted. In any case, someone will have to take up the reformist mantle in order to beat President Obama with it next fall.