Politico has a piece about how the guy who promised that the days of special interests and money running things in Washington turned out to be as bad anyone before him, with the "bundlers"--those who raised as much as $500,000 in contributions for Obama's campaign--disproportionately among those getting plum jobs:
Gips, a vice president of Colorado-based Level 3 Communications, delivered more than $500,000 in contributions for the Obama war chest, while two other company executives collected at least $150,000 more.
After the election, Gips was put in charge of hiring in the
Obama White House, helping to place loyalists and fundraisers in many key positions. Then, in mid-2009, Obama named him ambassador to South Africa. Meanwhile, Level 3 Communications, in which Gips retained stock, received millions of dollars of government stimulus contracts for broadband projects in six states — though Gips said he had been “completely unaware” that the company had received the contracts.
And it goes on and on like this:
• Overall, 184 of 556, or about one-third of Obama bundlers or their spouses joined the administration in some role. But the percentages are much higher for the big-dollar bundlers. Nearly 80 percent of those who collected more than $500,000 for Obama took “key administration posts,” as defined by the White House. More than half the 24 ambassador nominees who were bundlers raised $500,000.
I'm sure that was just a coincidence, of course.
Actually, isn't Level 3 big and competitive enough that it could very well be coincidence in this one case?
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