Posted on 08/01/2002 3:20:32 AM PDT by rambo316
"When positive imagery about your own candidate proves insufficient, negative ads about your opponent are the only alternative."
–"Tricky" Dick Gephardt, "An Even Better Place"
Watergate II, like the original, represents an attack on the chief feature of this democratic republic: free and fair elections. It involved a series of burglaries, wiretaps, possible violations of campaign financing laws, sabotage and the attempted use of government agencies to harm a political opponent. It allegedly was orchestrated – not to help a president – but by a man who is looking to become president, House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt.
Gephardt is thought to posses all the elements needed to win the presidency: power, influence, political savvy and boyish good looks. If he doesn't run in 2004, then he is expected to run sometime thereafter. At 61, he has time on his side and can afford to wait for the right political moment.
However, in 2000, Gephardt faced an unexpected battle for his congressional seat that could have ended his political career. The challenge came from historian William Federer, a political neophyte who ran against him in 1998, whose campaign suddenly caught fire two years later.
The blueprint the Gephardt machine allegedly used in the 2000 election to beat Federer, appears to be from a chapter in a 1999 book, "An Even Better Place," written by Gephardt to promote his socialist ideology.
With Gephardt on the political ropes, his campaign began to chip away at Federer's squeaky-clean image with spurious accusations using bits of personal information that may have been obtained through a series of break-ins at Federer's home, office and campaign headquarters (outlined in a previous column) which never were investigated.
One of the many accusations, which turned out to be false, was that Federer took a campaign contribution over the $1,000 limit. Meanwhile there are some serious questions about the funding of Gephardt's campaign that involved big money, also never investigated.
In the beginning, the 2000 race in the Missouri's third congressional district appeared to be another Gephardt cakewalk. Then, Federer's many conservative admirers, from all around the country, began sending in small donations. Some 35,000 individual donations were received totaling $2.7 million.
However, when Gephardt needed money, he simply transferred the cash from his Democrat Leader's Victory Fund – a special fund available to the minority leader, created by a loophole in a law he helped pass, especially designed to get around those pesky individual limits. The idea behind the fund was to help Gephardt get more Democrats elected to Congress. When he raided the fund for his own benefit, this raised a few eyebrows, even among the jaded on Capitol Hill.
While Federer's contributors were limited to $1,000 each, individuals were writing $20,000 checks to the DLVF and $2 million of DLVF money was funneled directly into Gephardt's campaign coffer. Incidentally, the DLVF was using the exact same mailing address as the Gephardt campaign, 7435 Watson Road. He didn't bother to go to the trouble to open an office for the DLVF down the street.
Did anyone check to see if some of the big donors to DLVF had maxed out their contributions to Gephardt? On Aug. 20, 2000, Cheryl Melinda Allen, a housewife, wrote a $20,000 check to the DLVF on the very day she made her maximum allowable donation to the Gephardt in Congress Committee.
As you go down the list of contributors, the name Barry Babcock of Charter Communications pops out for the same reason. On Oct. 1, 1999, Babcock made his maximum contribution to the Gephardt in Congress Committee, the same day he wrote a $9,000 check to the DLVF.
If not illegal, these shenanigans are unseemly, but members of the media, who have shown such an appetite for so-called campaign finance reform, did not want to chew on this.
There were many other odd financial transactions that occurred in and around the district that ultimately benefited the Gephardt campaign. However, only charges of wrongdoing made by the Gephardt campaign against Federer were taken seriously and thoroughly investigated by the media. Various federal and state agencies were baited into launching their own investigations, leaving a cloud over the Federer parade. Only after the election had been decided in Gephardt's favor, did the Federal Election Committee begin its investigation which eventually cleared Federer's name.
No, Federer is not running again. There is no point in challenging a political machine that is allowed to grind up opponents at will with the aid of the local media that should apply the brakes, but instead provides the grease and spreads the dirt.
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