210 Barack H. Obama: The Unauthorized Biographyher off the ballot. It was nothing personal: They did the same thing to every other Democrat in
the race. “He knocked off the incumbent, so that right there gave him some notoriety,” said Ron
Davis, who served as Mr. Obama’s precinct coordinator. “And he ran unopposed — which for a
rookie is unheard of.”’ (Janny Scott, “In Illinois, Obama Proved Pragmatic and Shrewd,” New
York Times, July 30, 2007) Trilateral magic again.
Democratic Senator Paul Simon of Illinois may perhaps be recalled by some Americans as the
boring buffoon in the bow tie who competed in the Democratic primaries for the presidential
nomination back in the 1980s. Simon’s role appears to have been to put a professorial, “good
government” façade on the nefarious activities of the Combine. This included the absurdity of a
bipartisan ethics bill that would in effect apply a thin film of lipstick to the corrupt porker of graft
rollicking in the Combine’s pigsty.
Illinois had one of the least regulated campaign finance systems in the country and a history of
corruption. Paul Simon, the former United States senator, was running a public policy institute
at Southern Illinois University and asked each of the four legislative leaders to name a trusted
lawmaker to work on a bipartisan ethics bill. Mr. Jones recalls receiving a call from Abner J.
Mikva, a former Chicago congressman, federal judge and friend of Mr. Simon. Judge Mikva,
who had once tried to hire Mr. Obama as a law clerk, suggested him for the job. Mr. Jones says
he knew that the new senator was hard-working and bright and that few others would want the
assignment. “He caught pure hell,” Mr. Jones said of Mr. Obama. “I actually felt sorry for him
at times.” The job required negotiating across party lines to come up with reform proposals,
then presenting them to the Democratic caucus. Senator Kirk Dillard, the Republican Senate
president’s appointee, said, “Barack was literally hooted and catcalled in his caucus.” On the
Senate floor, Mr. Dillard said, “They would bark their displeasure at me, and then they’d unload
on Obama.” (Janny Scott, “In Illinois, Obama Proved Pragmatic and Shrewd,” New York Times,
July 30, 2007)COSMETIC REFORMS TO CAMOUFLAGE THE COMBINE
Today Obama claims that his campaign does not take contributions from federal lobbyists, but in
reality he is eager to take contributions from the law partners, close associates, families, and friends
of those lobbyists through the notorious corrupt practice known as bundling. Here we see another
aspect of Obama’s method as it has evolved since his days in Springfield, Illinois. He defines some
aspect of the prevalent corruption in the most narrow and exclusive possible way, and then parades
his stance on this tiny slice of the overall corruption pie as offering proof of his peerless probity and
rectitude. So far, quite a few suckers have been taken in by this tactic.
“I know [Obama] wanted to limit contributions by corporations or labor unions, and he
certainly wanted to stop the transfers of huge amounts of money from the four legislative
caucus leaders into rank-and-file members’ campaigns,” Mr. Dillard said. “But he knew that
would never happen. So he got off that kick and thought disclosure was a more practical way to
shine sunlight on what sometimes are unsavory practices.” (Janny Scott, “In Illinois, Obama
Proved Pragmatic and Shrewd,” New York Times, July 30, 2007)
Affluent suburbanites interested in clean government rather than in securing broad-based
economic benefits for the disadvantaged went ga-ga over Obama’s exercise in cosmetic and
window-dressing reform. All the while, the wheels of the Combine were grinding out graft in the
back room. One example of Obama’s successful deception was a measure for public disclosure of
campaign contributions: