Idaho Politics: Commentary
Campaign Spending Sends Voters Important Messages
By Jill Kuraitis, 11-19-07
One of the most common complaints voters have about political reporting is that they want to hear more about issues and less about campaigning.
We prefer writing about issues, but we also believe it’s responsible to shine a light on campaign matters which reveal telling attitudes about a candidate.
It’s my opinion that the way candidates spend their campaign money says a lot about their values and priorities. Idaho Lt. Gov. Jim Risch is a case in point.
When Risch announced Oct. 9 that he would run for the U.S. Senate seat now held by Larry Craig, he flew around the state on a Lear 45 owned by Frank VanderSloot, the eastern Idaho multi-millionaire who is CEO of Melaleuca, Inc.
Federal Election Commission regulations apply to borrowed airplanes. Risch is required to pay VanderSloot “fair market value of such flight.” VanderSloot told me he had billed the Risch campaign for just under $12,000. He knows precisely what he is and isn’t allowed to do with his airplane, quoting chapter and verse from state and federal election laws.
When Boise businessman Walt Minnick announced last week he was entering the Democratic primary for the 1st Congressional District, he flew on a five-seat prop chartered from SP Aircraft of Boise. Minnick told me the cost was about $1,500. He also knows the election laws.
Both campaign tours touched down twice in cities other than Boise, and both campaigns will pay their bills from campaign funds.
In October, I asked three air charter companies for price quotes for the same route Risch flew, using a Learjet 45. Using a calculated average of the three, the flight would cost about $15,000.
Because of varying interpretations of FEC regulations and different pricing from companies which fly Lear 45s, there is no absolute answer defining what Risch should pay VanderSloot. Perhaps it should be higher, but let’s call Risch’s actual cost of $12,000 fair for now.
It still doesn’t compare well with Minnick’s $1,500. A difference of over $10,000 is about a year’s groceries for a family of six. It’s enough to pay for physical therapy or mental health treatment for a veteran for a year.
Can Risch think that spending $12,000 of his donors’ money on a fancy airplane ride is a responsible use of that money, and does he even consider factors such as more worthy uses of those thousands? Minnick’s air charter employed an Idaho company. Risch’s ride put money in the pocket of a businessman with a political history of anti-gay and extreme right-wing ideology and action.
His opponent, Democrat Larry LaRocco, said, “Jim Risch and Rex Rammell [Risch’s primary opponent] should join me in pledging never to use corporate aircraft for personal or campaign purposes. Working Idahoans do not have access to these resources in either case and neither should candidates for office. It’s time to end business as usual,” LaRocco said.
United Vision for Idaho, a nonprofit group which advocates publicly-funded elections, agrees. Executive Director Jim Hansen said, “Since we have privatized elections, plane trips like this are just a symptom. Candidates for public office turn to private interests to finance the public job they seek. A $12,000 plane trip is a modest investment for a wealthy corporate executive to make since the return he gets on that investment is probably in the $millions in tax breaks, subsidies, contracts, regulatory relief, etc.”
“Who pays for those millions? Ordinary taxpayers like you and me.”
Risch should join with Larry LaRocco in pledging not to use corporate aircraft for campaigning. And he ought to think hard about the profligate spending of money on luxury jets when 53,000 Idaho kids have no health insurance, 13% of Idahoans live in poverty and there is little to spend on veterans’ health care needs.
Empathy and a charitable heart are more important than flying in comfort. That’s why spending priorities are, and should be, a campaign issue.
Full disclosure: I am a long-time close friend of A.K. Minnick, Walt Minnick’s wife. I volunteered several hours on Minnick’s Senate campaign in 1996.
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Another thought: The fly-around campaign kickoffs are great for photo opps, but (high gas prices aside) I like the idea of my candidates driving around the state, stopping in lots of small towns to meet voters. Larry Grant wore out a vehicle doing that last year, and Larry LaRocco seems on a pace to do the same. I'm guessing Jim Hansen could tell similar tales!
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Ideas & Trends: Liberal Transit; Those Democrats and Their Private Jets
Published: August 15, 2004
THERE are objects or possessions that scream ''I'm better than you'' -- items that remind the average Joe of a cultural and economic divide that cannot be crossed. It's a $10,000 bottle of wine, a Hummer, a real Rolex. This year's conspicuous object seems to be the private jet.
Once, this prized possession was associated with corporate executives and reclusive stars. Or with congressmen on a junket. There was nothing political, or at least nothing partisan, about them. But since October, when John Edwards was tweaked for flying on planes borrowed from Archer Daniels Midland and other companies, they have become what conservatives have portrayed as symbols of liberal hypocrisy, much as the Volvo was a generation ago. The argument is: these people pretend to be ''of the people'' or at least ''for the people'' but they are elitists who fly far above the rest of us.
When the leftist film maker Michael Moore used his publisher's plane on a recent book tour, for example, critics lambasted him for enjoying the corporate high life. The Hollywood activist Laurie David, the wife of Larry David of ''Curb Your Enthusiasm,'' was labeled a ''Gulfstream liberal'' in an article in the latest issue of The Atlantic Monthly for condemning S.U.V. owners while flying around in private planes.
Arianna Huffington, a financial backer of anti-S.U.V. commercials, has also borne the brunt of criticism for traveling in a jet; and a supermarket magnate, Ron Burkle, is perhaps as well known for his eight-bedroom 767 as he is for the more than $1.5 million that he has given to the Democratic Party since 2000.
Republicans, of course, avoid the hassles of commercial flight at least as often as Democrats. The former chairman of Enron, Kenneth Lay, even flew on private planes to his company's bankruptcy hearings. But no one accuses Republicans and their wealthy supporters of hypocrisy, of being ''Gulfstream conservatives.'' ''Democrats get hit with a double whammy,'' said Bill Blomquist, a political science professor at Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis. ''It's not just expensive and indulgent. It's also somehow against the principles of the party.''
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Although this article comes from 2004, I don't believe things have changed. Perhaps Mr. Minnick and Mr. LaRocco will be able to thumb a ride with one of their fellow D's passing through to ski at Sun Valley.
Actually, I stopped by to mention that Vadersloot is an issue that voters need to be aware of. Candidates that will cater to his machinations and greed need to be uncovered and held out to the voter's condemnation. From the way it looks Vader owns more politicians than Simplot, something that I never thought I would ever see.
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US: Savings and Issues in Candidates’ Use of Private Jets
by Michael Cooper and Leslie Wayne, The New York Times
July 26th, 2007
During a discussion of global warming at a debate this week in Charleston, S.C., the Democratic presidential candidates were asked if they had arrived in private jets. Quite a few hands went up, some a tad reluctantly.
But the issue of how the candidates are crisscrossing the country is of interest not only to people concerned about pollution or to envious summer travelers weary of walking shoeless through metal detectors, long flight delays and cramped seats.
It also shows how some campaigns have been able to reap financial benefits from their supporters by using corporate and privately owned jets for campaign travel at costs substantially lower than the main alternative, chartering a plane. Federal election rules allow candidates to reimburse corporate jet owners for travel by paying first-class commercial rates and in some instances coach rates for each passenger, making corporate and private jets less expensive in most cases than charters.
Travel costs are a particular issue in this election cycle because so many candidates have been campaigning far earlier than in previous elections. And with so many states having moved up the dates of their primaries, the candidates have more places to be, even at this early stage.
Some candidates rely so often on the same corporate patrons for discounted private jet travel that they seem to have their own air chauffeurs. John Edwards, the Democratic former senator from North Carolina, paid more than $430,000 in the first six months of this year for the use of a jet owned by Fred Baron, his finance chairman, a prominent trial lawyer. Rudolph W. Giuliani, the Republican former mayor of New York, has paid more than $175,000 during the first half of the year for flights on jets leased by Elliott Asset Management, a company owned by Paul E. Singer, a hedge fund executive who is one of Mr. Giuliani’s main backers.
Other presidential candidates have used planes from a variety of companies and executives. Mitt Romney, the Republican former governor of Massachusetts, has taken flights on corporate jets from eBay and from Lawrence Ellison, the chief executive of Oracle, among others. Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, a Democrat, has used planes owned by some companies with business before his state.
The savings can be substantial. A chartered Hawker 800, a midsize, twin-engine corporate jet from Washington, D.C., to Manchester, N.H., would cost about $7,000, according to CSI Aviation services, an air charter company. The Hawker seats 8 to 13 passengers. If a candidate were to reimburse a company for the use of a corporate jet at first-class rates, the same flight would cost less than $700 per person...
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Jill's concern, and mine as well, is the single interest "donation" from megarich interests like Vadersloot. The flying portion of the article and discussion is just a lead in to ask if the jets that are being flown by LOCAL politicians is any indication of the future capabilities of the politicians themselves.
How this has any bearing on Arianna Huffington's va-Jay-jay or what Al Gore was wearing when he accepted his Nobel award is suspect and does nothing for this comment thread.
I would love to see debate moderators give each candidate a pencil and piece of paper with the followng direction:
"Write down your top five priorities for the country in the context of this statement:
'I promise to address (write in issue) by doing the following (write in specific measureable actions) during my term
Then have them do the same thing for representing their state.
We need representatives that are able to express where we and they are, where we need to go, and what it takes to get there.
It appears that Obama has had some recent trouble on that "where am I thing" when traveling on his exclusive jet. http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/nation/article/0,1299,DRMN_16_5741651,00.html
Perhaps political opinion writers could get the ball rolling on what really matters.
I don't intend to criticize Walt Minnick for chartering a plane for his campaign announcement trip. Several announcements in a day is standard practice for campaign kickoffs, and given Idaho's size, it's hard to do that via scheduled air service.
If you don't believe that the unwritten campaign contributions of the Vadersloot jet, or that the higher financial travel burden may be indicative of a candidate's future capacity, are of a unique value to Idaho voters then I don't think you really have any point to make here.
Furthermore, Jay, your transparent attempt to smear a candidate without putting forth specific facts of wrong doing or questionable behavior is just typical. Are your champions so brittle and vacuous of content that your smokescreen is necessary to deflect scrutiny?
1) Risch is using Vadersloot's Lear jet, which costs somewhere around $12,000 per ride, estimated.
2) The democratic candidates are being more frugal, tending to use cars or domestic flights, costing almost 90% less than what a Lear jet would cost.
Given those two things, it appears that the Democratic candidates can, and should, use their frugality and budget savvy as a campaign issue and voters should be made aware, as at least a side issue.
As for your generalization that this is a "main issue" for democrats, that is just a pathetic attempt that is typical from you, Craig. As well, your insinuation that I've tried to "smear" a candidate is specious and vacuous, typical again of your arguments.
Finally, I understand your philosophy, and I am actually a bit shocked by it. I must strongly disagree with that method of discussion or commenting - on anything. A discussion isn't a tit-for-tat, a competition, or something "deserving" an immediate opposite retort. It's a discussion of specifically what the article is about, specifically referring to passages, quotes, or evidence as you discuss them, and being SPECIFIC. It can be about challenging the writer, but it doesn't HAVE to be, even if you are disagreeing. It can just be disagreement, discussed.
When you use these long cut-and-paste responses that are all over the map in terms of subject matter, it does not respect the spirit of true, mature discussion. I can't stop you from doing it, but I wish you would cut it out.
Just an observation that you must be going to vote for someone other than a D for president because your criteria eliminates every singly candidate who presently or in the past have taken rides on private jets.
Jay, if the private jet issue is the pony that puts the jingle in your spurs, then ride it well. Meanwhile the real issues important to our nation remain to be wrangled.
And as someone mentioned above, the reality of driving through the state, stopping and talking to locals and actually seeing the conditions of roads/schools/irrigation systems/etc can raise the awareness of a candidate, offering an extra bonus for those that live in rural areas.
I'd prefer a candidate that can speak of the poor conditions of roadways as a personal experience rather than "I've heard complaints from blah blah blah". When going into a primary, I'd be very interested in how well the candidates can relate to rural economies and infrastructures.
Evidently, though, that doesn't matter to you. So in just one post, you've summed up exactly everything that you should have said at the beginning of this thread and with the most civility I've seen from you.
My philosophy as such wasn't in those first two sentences that you point to but rather beginning in the third:
'Why concentrate on red herrings when there is a whole kettle of important fish to fry?
I would love to see debate moderators give each candidate a pencil and piece of paper with the followng direction:
"Write down your top five priorities for the country in the context of this statement:
'I promise to address (write in issue) by doing the following (write in specific measureable actions) during my term
Then have them do the same thing for representing their state.
We need representatives that are able to express where we and they are, where we need to go, and what it takes to get there.'
see further points of what i don't care for in the ad here:
http://nutritionalplastic.blogs.com/endosymbiont/2007/11/new-larocco-ad.html
The other critical issue is the "under" reporting (or even nonreporting) of contributions by both sides. I am sure Mr. Vs attorneys have ensured that everything he has done is "legal". His history would suggest that he believes he is above (or smarter) than the rules.
The inherent problem with politicians is that they confuse the public interest with their own interest. Once you're elected, you have a fiduciary duty to the people you represent. That means acting in their interest, rather than your own. Acting in the interest of your closest and wealthiest friends doesn't count as acting in the public interest, either.
Integrity matters. If we base our selection on nothing more than a bundle of stated positions, we reinforce the system that encourages candidates to check the polls and tell us what we want to hear.