Why would you pay $500K to keep a job paying 100K w/job security for 2 yrs?

[williesgirl]

I think this question needs to be asked. What else besides salary and prestige is he getting to make this payoff worth it?


edited to add:

Sorry, talking about Sherwood (R-PA-10) paying 500K to his abused ex-mistress to shut up BEFORE election. Installments based on her remaining quiet thru 06 elections.

[Hosnon]

1. Is this about a Congressman? If so, I imagine that ability to vote is quite an attraction. nt

[keepCAblue]

2. Can we say "Duke Cunningham" boys and girls? eom

[NewYorkerfromMass]

4. You were message ID # 2555582

and I was 2555583. I was THAT close! :)

[NewYorkerfromMass]

3. umm.... Duke

Cunningham is a good example of why.

[keepCAblue]

5. Exactly. It's not about Sherwood's paltry 100K salary.

It's about power. Power that begats connections. Connections that begat favors. Favors that begat "contributions", "gifts", money laundering and creative bribes.

[EST]

6. When I was young and naive, this problem disturbed me greatly

IT took me years and years to figure out that the question, itself, was the problem. They don't spend that kind of money to get that $160k job.
First, the money they give to all the media, etc, who are standing there with their hands out, is not theirs.
Secondly, the salary paid by us is little more than pocket money to most of them. The willingness of virtually the entire world to stuff money in their pockets is stunning.

Many of the people who achieve national prominence have sufficient resources so that the pay is of no significance. However, in order to love politics, you have to have a real jones about being sucked up to.

That may be an odd way of putting it, but that's it in a nutshell. Try not sucking up to a senator and see where it gets you.

To be president, more than half the population (theoretically) has to suck up to you, and that's the biggest suckup quotient (referred to as SQ) that you can get, in normal times, except for the occasional entertainer, movie star, musician, whatever.
That's why Clinton is so viscerally hated-his sq is higher than anybody in the wingnut society can ever attain to.

Because of this, the nutters will stop at nothing to gain sq and the victor in a big war has a big advantage in the sq hogging.

So, the real purpose of the races is to give the sq hogs the space to battle each each other and produce a minimum of damage to the rest of us. Unfortunately, that arrangement is upside down right now and we have to fix it.