Tom Corbett, our newly elected governor, said that although members of his transition team contributed 4.6 million dollars, they will get no special treatment.
They’ve already received special treatment; they are members of his transition team.
Some years ago the reform group Common Cause looked at the claim that campaign contributors don’t buy votes. The report said that most campaign contributions are not quid pro quo actions. The campaign contributor doesn’t say, “I’ll give you a donation in return for a vote.” The word for that is “bribe.” Instead, the donor modestly says, “All I get is access.”
As the report asked, “What more could you want?” You and I don’t have access to Tom Corbett. We can’t call him up and say, “Hey Tommie, how the heck are you?” We won’t have dinner with him, or play golf with him, or talk to him over coffee about why the natural gas companies don’t want a severance tax. We won’t serve on his transition team, either.
I miss Governor Rendell already.
Read the article in our local paper and my first thoughts were that its a lot of BS. Anyone that gives money to a campaign is doing so for one reason and that is to get something in return. Time will tell.
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