Celebrity Spokesmodel for President
Continually milling around in my mind are questions like: shouldn't someone in charge of running the country be smarter about a lot of things than I am? Why should I feel safer if the guy in charge is dumber than rocks? If I were having brain surgery, would I like the brain surgeon to be smarter than I am about brain surgery?
In a word, I imagine that it might be nice if such a person were qualified for the job.
But wait — I realize — what if I just misunderstood the manner of the qualifications?
But out in California, [Governor] Arnold [Schwarzenegger]’s Little Helper is Merck, as well as Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, GlaxoSmithKline and the rest of the pharmaceutical cartel that are ponying up $100 million for the special election that Schwarzenegger has called for this November. Oh, and the other corporations that are going to give him another $100 million or so.
The question for Schwarzenegger, as he deals with his addiction to fundraising, is whether it is going to be as politically deadly for him as Vioxx was for that poor gentleman down in Texas. It just might be.
Corporations in California have bet the farm on our celebrity-bodybuilder….
[Deborah Burger, "When Arnold Falls, Maybe He’ll Take His Corporate Sponsors With Him", The Huffington Post, 30 August 2005.]*
Politicians in the current era of Republican dominance are not meant to be professionals skilled at leadership, institutional management, or statesmanship.
Today's politicians have become Celebrity Spokesmodels for big corporations!
I suddenly feel that I understand the political dynamic so much better.
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*From the end of the same piece:
How important is this issue to public policy? Robert Pear reported in the New York Times this week that drug companies spent $86.0 million on lobbying Congress last year, and overall the healthcare industry spent $325 million, more than any other sector. Only when we get the corporate bribes out of the system can we have meaningful healthcare reform, not to mention a host of other important issues that affect patients and consumers.