Big Money: 2.5 Billion Dollars, One Suspicious Vehicle, and a Pimp--on the Trail of the Ultra-Rich Hijacking American Politics, by Kenneth P. Vogel
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Mark Hanna, the turn-of-the-century iron-and-coal-magnate-turned-operative who leveraged massive contributions from the robber barons, was famously quoted as saying: "There are two things that are important in politics. The first is money, and I can't remember what the second one is." To an extent that would have made Hanna blush, a series of developments capped by the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision effectively crowned a bunch of billionaires and their operatives the new kings of politics.
Big Money is a rollicking tour of a new political world dramatically reordered by ever-larger flows of cash. Ken Vogel has breezed into secret gatherings of big-spending Republicans and Democrats alike, from California poolsides to DC hotel bars, to brilliantly expose the way the mega-money men (and rather fewer women) are dominating the new political landscape.
Great wealth seems to attach itself to outsize characters. From the casino magnate Sheldon Adelson to the bubbling nouveau cowboy Foster Friess; from the Texas trial lawyer couple Amber and Steve Mostyn, to the micromanaging Hollywood executive Jeffrey Katzenberg, the multimillionaires and billionaires are swaggering up to the tables for the hottest new game in politics. The prize is American democracy, and the players' checks keep getting bigger.
Big Money: 2.5 Billion Dollars, One Suspicious Vehicle, and a Pimp--on the Trail of the Ultra-Rich Hijacking American Politics, by Kenneth P. Vogel- Amazon Sales Rank: #2291890 in Books
- Published on: 2015-11-03
- Formats: Audiobook, MP3 Audio, Unabridged
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 6.75" h x .50" w x 5.25" l,
- Running time: 13 Hours
- Binding: MP3 CD
Review James Kwak, New York Times Book Review“What Vogel gives us is a detailed look at this new political landscape, where voracious money-sucking beasts mingle with megadonors hungry for behind-the-scenes access…Whether we are witnessing is a tectonic shift or a gradual evolution, ‘Big Money’ amply and colorfully makes the case that our elected leaders are increasingly dependent on a small number of seven-digit checks written by a few dozen members of the 0.01 percent, and therefore politics are becoming a type of thoroughbred horse racing.”Barton Swaim, Wall Street Journal“With ‘Big Money’—-which takes up the Kochs and other rich political contributors, including Sheldon Adelson, Rob McKay and liberal Texas lawyers Steve and Amber Mostyn—-Mr. Vogel has succeeded in doing what I, for one, didn't think possible. He has made the subject of money in politics entertaining—indeed, gripping. He does this by a combination of factual analysis, eyebrow-raising scoops and zany stories.”Michael Levin, Huffington Post“Vogel is a master of Politico's deliciously snarky political style and offers us glimpses of our elders and betters at their least dignified. …Vogel's Big Money is a must-read if you are concerned about politics and the future of this country.”Bethany McLean, Washington Post“[Vogel] knows the characters and gets the game. Want to understand Mitt Romney’s fundraising operation, how Jim Messina mobilized big donors for Obama’s 2012 campaign or the war chest that is already growing underneath Hillary Clinton? Vogel tells the stories. He also offers lots of detail on one of the most fascinating frenmities in modern right-wing politics: Karl Rove and the Koch brothers. And he offers great facts to bolster his overall claim...To his great credit, Vogel is also pretty even-handed...This is a book by an insider, for insiders.”Daniel Ben-Ami, Financial Times“Kenneth Vogel, chief investigative reporter for Politico, the news organisation, does an excellent job in untangling this story. Much of the book consists of reportage, with him trying to attend secretive meetings between ultra-wealthy donors and electoral candidates seeking funding. Often he was barred from entering or ejected after being identified as a journalist….He is commendably non-partisan in his reporting. Vogel sketches the shadowy fundraising worlds of both of the main parties. He also reports on the intense factional rivalry that sometimes exists within their respective camps.”Walter Shapiro, Brennan Center for Justice“Vogel's paparazzi tactics -- coupled with relentless traditional reporting -- have made Big Money the smartest and most revealing book chronicling the Super PAC era. Instead of predictable legal analysis and a mind-numbing march of statistics, Vogel tries to grasp what motivates the wealthy to invest so heavily in Super PACs. And his answers do not fit into the neat ideological cubbyholes of either campaign reformers or believers in the nonsensical, but powerful, doctrine that money equals free speech.”Chris Moody, Yahoo! News“Pull[s] back the curtain on some of the most important players... Through impressive sourcing, Vogel’s work...offers a peek into the secretive universe of megadonors in the post-Citizens United era.”The Economist's Democracy in America blog“A highly entertaining account of the adventures of billionaires in politics.”Joel Connelly, SeattlePI.com“Vogel manages to entertain while reporting on the politics of excess, even when things turn sinister… The most fascinating aspect of Vogel’s book is what manner of candidate big money culture produces, with a look back to 2012 and ahead at 2016... Buy Hillary’s book for your coffee table, but take 'Big Money' on vacation.”Jim Newell, Bookforum“Vogel’s decision to adopt a gonzo-style approach allows us to check out our new oligarchic digs as the contractors near completion. Throughout the book, Vogel shares versions of the same first-person story that never seems to lose its alternatingly comedic and terrifying edges: Here’s a closed-door donor conference I snuck into, and here’s what happened when they found me out.”Truthdig“Excellent and revealing.”Politix“Big Money is a fascinating, yet often depressing, tale about what—and who—really matter in American elections…Most books about campaign finance are dry tomes detailing the technicalities of political action committees (PACs), hard vs. soft money, and the like. It's enough to make a reader's eyes glaze over after the first chart or regression analysis. Big Money is instead an incisive, at-time hilarious, look at the very rich human beings who now dominate big-time political fundraising…To learn about who is likely to give and why, Kenneth P. Vogel's Big Money is a must-read.”
About the Author Kenneth P. Vogel covers the confluence of money, politics, and influence for Politico. He’s won awards from the Association of Capitol Reporters and Editors, the Society of Professional Journalists, and Investigative Reporters and Editors. He analyzes politics on national television and radio, and lives in Alexandria, Virginia, with his wife, Danielle, and their dog, Ali.
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20 of 20 people found the following review helpful. Excellent descriptive reporting of an important problem By Dave Kuhlman It's ironic that one of the biggest changes in U.S. political system came during thetenure of the President Obama, who had sworn to defeat and push back against the use andinfluence of big money in our political campaigns. For me, that shows the power of theU.S. Supreme Court to radically change our political system, and to make it responsive tothe rich.The Citizens United decision and the rise of super PACs has increased the need for moreand bigger checks from donors. And, the need for that huge stream of money goes onthrough a long election cycle: through primaries, and through the general election, too.In some sense, we already knew this. We knew that there were huge amounts of money in ourpolitical system, both in campaign finance and in the lobbying that goes on duringCongress's work to create and vote on legislation. Vogel's value is to give us a readableand entertaining account of the inside of this process and also, depressingly, to show usjust how huge those sums are and how much influence they enable a small slice of the U.S.public to have and how corrupt the U.S. political system has become.It's not a pleasant picture.This new system and all the money in it has eroded the power of the official politicalparties. And, this is one part of "Big money" that I do not understand very well. Vogelclaims that because of the organization of the super PACs, (1) the function of ourpolitical parties has been privatized and (2) that now we have "shadow parties" composedof organizations of super PACs and the political operatives and consultants that createand manage them. This privatization of political parties and organizations is especiallytrue of the Tea Party, which several groups, the Koch brothers in particular, tried tofund and to capture for their own purposes. This is a topic that I'd love to heardiscussed in a college level political science class or seminar.One consequence of the erosion of the power of the major political parties in the U.S.(both the Republican and the Democratic parties) is that leaders in Congress, both in theSenate and in the House of Representatives, have lost much of their power to control theirmembers. And, that results in a dysfunctional Congress that refuses or that cannot act topass legislation and solve problems.Vogel reports in detail on the new industry and the teams of consultants and operativethat has grown to create and promote and manage this flood of cash. But, even he cannotsee inside many of these organizations, because of the lack of reporting requirements.Perhaps 'that' is why he calls them "shadow political parties", because they operate inthe dark, because they are opaque to us, and because they are the dark matter of ourpolitical system.The details that Vogel reports give a picture of the segments of this industry: (1) thefund raising and organizing that pumps super rich donors for money; (2) the operationalside, e.g. the spending of these huge amounts of money, especially during and on politicalcampaigns; and (3) the gate-keepers for the rich, i.e. those who screen the candidates inan attempt to ensure that the money given to or spent on a particular candidate willproduce the results that the donor wants to achieve.The candidates are very aware that they are being screened. They know that they are beingauditioned for their future performance. And, they are intensely conscious that if theydo not act accordingly while campaigning and when in office, that they will fore goimportant sources of funds.The outrageous thing is that, since the dominant and most successful strategy is to goafter only the super rich, our political system is becoming skewed so as to represent onlya very narrow segment of our population.The success rate that big money and super PACs have in getting their candidates elected isnot 100 per cent, which is not surprising, since we now have a system in which the richcompete against the rich. But, *some* well-funded candidate is going to win, and thatwinning candidate knows who paid to get him into office. That elected official knows thats/he "must dance with the one who brought them". And, remember that much of this hugepool of money is spent after the campaign: it is used to lobby officials after they getinto office. Either way, the influence in politics is predominantly that of the superrich, because that's where the money is.We have to remember that there are those who believe that we should have a right to spendunlimited amounts of money to influence politics. Perhaps they are aware of theconsequences; perhaps they are not. And, some of them justify, or at least rationalize itby claiming that it'd be alright if we had full disclosure. I question whether disclosurewould have much effect, since many of the donors are proud of their support. But, you'dhave to get that disclosure requirement written into law and enforced, which seems like anup-hill battle.One thing that Vogel's book exposes for us is one of the significant consequences that theconcentration of wealth in the U.S. is having. In effect, it shows the flaw in theargument that it's good for the rich to get richer, as long as everyone's lot is improvedat the same time. If the rich get *much* richer than everyone else, then, as Vogel shows,they get much more political power. And, it cannot be good for our country to have aclass of super rich who have much more political influence than everyone else. That's notdemocracy; that's plutocracy.A cautionary note -- The organization of the institutions that collect the donor's money,that pass along the money, and that spend that money (e.g on campaigning ads), isextremely complex. That means that there are very smart people behind it. Oneimplication of that, among others, is that counter-acting this movement, dealing with it,limiting it, whatever will be extremely difficult. For a Congress that cannot agree toanything except voting for President Obama or voting against him, that seems like anunlikely thing to ask for.There is, in "Big money", a sizable amount of reporting on the libertarian, lower-taxes,smaller government people and their attempt to produce the kind of government (or lack ofgovernment?) that they want. But, Vogel is balanced. He spends plenty of time on theleft wing, as well, both on the liberal, more progressive big donors and those who are inthe more business friendly segment of the left. And, by the way, there is also on theright, a segment that pushes more for a government that is favorable to business more thanfor less government.However, Vogel at one point admits (or claims) that if an individual or a company or anindustry, for that matter, wants more from the U.S. government, then the fiscally prudentthing to do is to spend their money on lobbying after the election rather than on theelection campaign. Vogel as much as admits that writing huge checks in support of acandidate's election campaign is as much about ego as it is about getting some kind ofdesired election results. It's also about perks and wanting to be stroked.Vogel's book is a very good attempt to provide detailed and well-organized view of one ofthe most important problems in U.S. politics, specifically the influence of money in ourpolitical system and the degree to which the money is provided by a narrow class of superrich. Vogel spends less time on analyzing the results of that influence. But, he does doan important service in providing the description and details from which that analysiscould start.A down-side to Vogel's writing is that he makes more of us aware of the extent to whichpolitics in the U.S. is an activity done by and for the super rich. It's no wonder thatvoter participation and citizen satisfaction with our government is so low. I worry thatthe kind of awareness that Vogel leads us to will make that even worse. And, it will nothelp that delegates to the political convention will see the perks and attention from thecandidates and their organizations going so much toward the super rich.Some of the consequences that Vogel mentions: (1) A shift toward privatization, in thiscase the privatization of the funding of campaigns and the influence exerted on governmentofficials. (2) An increasing balkanization and tribalism of voters and the officials theyelect. That fragmentation into smaller and more rigid factions makes it more difficultfor our government, especially the Federal government, to do any meaningful work on theproblems we need solved. (3) "A completely legal hijacking of American democracy by theultra-rich" (p. 247): those who can afford to buy our government will more and more beable do so.One look toward the future: Vogel suggests that the Clintons, both Bill and Hillary, havea huge ability to raise large sums of money. So, if you are aghast and sickened by thatamount of money chasing politics now, you are not going to want to watch the 2016campaign. And, one of *my* worries is that, if so much of that big donor money on theDemocratic/liberal side is vacuumed up into the race for the presidency, what will happento all the other races. We are already seeing so many state legislatures andgovernorships being captured through big funding on the right. Are we likely to see thatbecome even more skewed?
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful. A Must-Read for Every American Voter By JerseyGirlReader This book is a wake-up call to every American who thinks his/her vote counts. The average U.S. citizen no longer has a say in this country because a small handful of very rich and powerful men are running things. Kenneth Vogel documents this scary truth in his extremely well written, thought-provoking book. I only wish BIG MONEY were fiction. Knowing that these things are really going on is scarier than any seat-of-the-pants thriller I've ever read.
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful. Must read By Richard H. Immerman Particularly as the Republican Party pulls out all the stops to gain a majority in the Senate even as it seeks to hold off Tea Party insurgents, Kenneth Vogel's new book could not be more timely--nor more revealing and instructive. His research on not only the money pouring into PACs but also on the motives behind the pourers, his knack for storytelling and elegant prose, and his expertise and insight make this a must read-book for scholars, political junkies, and, most importantly, concerned citizens. This is the kind of journalism which we historians can really respect.
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