Ken Berwitz
What\’s a candidate to do?
Here we have Bernie Sanders, scourge of the wealthy, who – damn their eyes – do not pay anywhere near their fair share of taxes. “fair share” being defined as however much it costs to give everyone else pretty much everything free….
….and then there\’s that need for umpteen million dollars to continue his presidential campaign.
Senator Bernie Sanders has repeatedly denounced campaignsthat he says are built around their candidates attending fund-raisers. He hasinsisted he will not “go out hustling money from the wealthiest people in thecountry,” and declared at the first Democratic debate that he is “not raisingmoney from millionaires and billionaires.”
Yet Mr. Sanders wascheered at a fancy campaign fund-raiser at the Hollywood home of Syd Leibovitch, a high-end real estate agent, andhis wife, Linda, on Wednesday night.
Tickets for theevent sold for a minimum of $250. Those who spent the maximum, $2,700, or whoraised $10,000, were invited to a “pre-event reception,” according to the invitation.
The 14 co-hostsincluded Cindy Asner, the former wife of the actor Ed Asner, the actress MimiKennedy, and Benjamin W. Decker, whosewebsite notes that he was once called the “legendary HollywoodP.R. maven” by Forbes magazine, and used to produce “celebrity-drivenred-carpet movie premieres.”
Uh…..about that disdain for millionaires and billionaires, Bernie?
See, in order to run for President you need a lot more than what those little donors can give you. You need big donors too…with a special emphasis on the phony-baloney Hollywood moguls who talk a great game about fairness and income-equality – just like you do, Bernie – while living exactly the lives, thus being exaectly the same people, they are railing about.
And tell us, Bernie: do you think there is any possibility that these folks might want something for their money? Maybe your support for certain positions on issues that mean something to them?
So what do you do? Call them out on their hypocrisy? Tell them you are not for sale? Or rubb elbows with them and collect their $$$, knowing it comes with a political price tag?
I guess we have our answer, don\’t we, Bernie.
For the rest of us…this is something to remember when anyone talks about how sincere these folks are when it comes to campaign finance reform. Maybe what they really want is for their money to be more important – i.e. more valuable to the Bernie Sanders\’ of the world – than anyone else\’s.
