A rational look at political contributions

Well, whaddya know, as Michael Feldman would say. Someone -- as in Phil Brinkman of the Wisconsin State Journal -- has tried to give a rational explanation of how business execs contribute to political campaigns, and why.

There are a few things, as usual, I could take issue with, like Jim Klauser acting as a critic when he used to be state DOA secretary, signing the contracts, at the same time he was Tommy Thompson's campaign chairman. The pertinent part of the story:

Once contracts have been signed, information about who's doing business with the state is freely available on the Internet to anyone, including campaign fundraisers. But several current and former Capitol insiders balked at even using that information to raise money.

"For the most part, any campaign should stay away from that," said Jim Klauser, Bugher's predecessor at DOA for 10 years. "Whether it's technically legal or not, the appearance is not very good."

Klauser, of course, never needed to go to the internet. He already knew who was getting the contracts.

In any case, Brinkman's effort is vastly better than the usual hysteria, whichi assumes there is something wrong with every contribution. Here it is:
Political donations aren't keys to the kingdom