Romney is pretending to be something he is not. He is renting the Republican party in order to fulfill his ambition of being President. The Republican party is renting Romney in order to fulfill its ambition of beating Barack Obama.
All administrations benefit from the in and outers.
Washington can be a very lonely place for Congressman and Senators. Many acquaintances almost all of whom want something and very few friends.
The Clintons represent three decades of the Democrat party being completely sure of getting the black vote, while doing nothing to help the black community in return.
Washington has become such a mercenary culture that there is no real political culture left. The defining exchange is money, not ideas, not problem-solving. We live in a democracy of money and images.
WASHINGTONIAN, n. A Potomac tribesman who exchanged the privilege of governing himself for the advantage of good government. In justice to him it should be said that he did not want to.
We had a completely deniable exchange of papers - in the winter before the 1997 election - with [Tony] Blair, setting out what we thought were the realistic parameters for a solution: and we were getting reasonable responses back from him. That's what led to Blair's visit to Belfast on May 16, 1997 - two weeks after he became Prime Minister and his first official visit outside London.
If politics were like sports, we could ask Israel to trade us Benjamin Netanyahu for Barack Obama. Of course, we would have to throw in trillions of dollars to get Israel to agree to the deal, but it would be money well spent.
It's normal for people, especially politicians, to expect rewards in return for favors.
