Naming Your Own Price

It may not have made your local newspaper, but there was a little hoo-haa in the New York Senate race first reported by The New York Times that deserves wider notice.

It seems a group of Pakistani Americans who wanted the President to visit Pakistan and seek a solution to its trouble with India held a fundraiser for Senate Candidate Hillary Clinton.

Mrs. Clinton dropped by the fundraiser, collected $50,000 from the group and told them she hoped the President would visit Pakistan.

Sure enough, not long after that the White House announced Pakistan would be added to the President's schedule and that he would go there after his current visit to India.

The White House said Mrs. Clinton had nothing to do with the schedule change and apparently there was nothing illegal about any of this.

But what I found interesting was deeper in the story. Mrs. Clinton's staff told the group she wouldn't attend the fund raiser unless they guaranteed her $50,000, which her staff later confirmed is her minimum charge for attending such affairs.

To me, that's the astonishing part and not just because Mrs. Clinton is involved. It shows money has become such an accepted way to gain access to politicians that candidates can now openly name their price for listening to a constituent group.

That may not be illegal, but to me, it's worse, because it turns the whole process into something it was never meant to be and that's wrong.