What Politicians Really Want

...No, this party was elegant rather than political...

...The Wall Street Journal revealed in 1969 that Halpern, who was then third-ranking Republican on the House Banking Committee, had more than $100,000 in bank loans that were either seriously overdue or totally unsecured by collateral...

...The shrewd lobbyist need not spend vast sums of money to provide a public official with what he wants...

...In response to questioning about the column, Gravel, who was originally a real estate promoter in Alaska, justified his home (“it’s actually worth $250,000”) both in terms of his work (“in my business entertaining is de rigueur”) and its investment possibilities...

...Halpern’s indebtedness-which eventually helped hasten his retirementstemmed from his insistence on living in a manner that may have fitted his prominence but certainly not his income...

...It would not disappear with tougher restrictions on campaign spending or with raising congressional and gubernatorial salaries to $60,000 or $80,000 a year...

...If Mitchell was serious, this is an unbelievably saccharine view of the cosmos...

...Gray justified the complicated transaction that paid for the craft by arguing that it helped him entertain visitors from back home: “I thought the best way to entertain constituents was to let them see the beautiful Capitol from the Potomac...

...But in 1973 they said they were approaching the point where they would be living beyond their means...

...It was neither the kind of party that O’Neill, said to be a man of relatively modest habits, would have given for himself, nor just a mechanical tribute like a testimonial dinner...

...It is this passion which explains his curious real estate transactions with Bebe Rebozo and Robert Abplanalp...

...Much has been written about the seductions of life in the White House...

...There is no need for explicit quid pro quos...

...A senator may regularly appear before 50 million Americans on the evening news, but he must make ends meet on a salary of $42,500...

...More than any other recent figure in public life, Richard Nixon illustrates the degree to which elected officials can come to believe their prominence should permit them to live on a par with millionaires...

...Neither should we overly praise Jerry Brown for deciding to live in a scantily furnished onebedroom apartment instead of the California governor’s mansion...

...John Brademas and was interested in student politics and got to be friends with many congressmen...

...For as long as there are men who dream, not of the work they will do in office but of the life they will lead, there are going to be lobbyists who know how to get what they want by exploiting those dreams...

...discrepancy between prominence and salary often rankles...

...Similarly, many senators are feeling the financial pinch caused 6y a recent $I5,OOO-a-year limit on the amount of speaking fees they can collect to supplement their salaries...

...But Anderson pinpoints the source of Nixon’s anxiety: “He lacks the income to sustain his lifestyle...

...But the financial problems of many in government explain why so often they become entranced with the trappings of office, with chauffeured limousines and elaborately equipped offices...

...What Politicians Really Want by Walter Shapiro Despite the intensity of our current national crusade against cormption, the number of public officials who are actively for sale is relatively small-and, one suspects, they tend to be expensive...

...in the fashionable Maryland countryside...

...With a $60,000 pension, Nixon is in no real financial danger...

...gestures so seemingly selfless as giving a party for someone about to leave office...

...Not only was Halpern overdrawn at the baqk, but he owed sizable sums to expensive French restaurants and hotels such as the Plaza in New York and the Fountainbleau in Miami Beach...

...The Rosenthals readily concede that they live well...

...Yet, one should not take too cynical a view and automatically assume that his party was given in return for a favor from O’Neill, for lobbyists like Park are often more subtle than that...

...The phrase “living beyond one’s means” has a dated ring, yet this expression often fits congressmen as closely as it fits the proverbial Westport advertising executive mortgaged to his eyebrows...

...Henry Mitchell of The Washington Post wrote that Park “was once a Georgetown student and roomed in those days with Rep...

...For someone else, it might be a chance to meet movie stars or to be accepted in the homes of aristocratic families...

...Even the more dedicated members of Congress feel a conflict between their lifestyles and their income...

...As the years passed, some of these friendships ripened and hence his fondness for O’Neill...

...But many more stem from the exigencies of maintaining a suitably elevated lifestyle...

...This explains why the most astute lobbyists can often win the friendship of congressmen and governors through little favors...

...According to Gravel, this last idea came from none other than Lyndon Johnson, who, on the verge of leaving office, took some freshmen senators aside and gave them this secret of success in Washington“Invest in local real estate...

...As Jerry Landauer put it in the Journal, Halpern is a “man of extravagant habits-reaching impetuously for dinner checks at fine restaurants, sending his attractive wife to costly vacation spas, collecting valuable manuscripts...

...In contrast, even if a senator with a middle-class income took a bribe, he probably would feel obligated to do something sensible with it, like putting it aside ?or his children’s college education...

...On a less exalted level, the chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is known, when driving around Washington, to call his staffers merely for the pleasure of saying: “I’m calling you from the phone in my car...

...For those (and there are many) who have gone into public service in quest of a certain lifestyle, there is a limit to how much satisfaction can be derived from having a refrigerator and a shower in your office...

...But they do live nicely...

...Obviously, public officials should not be required to live like Ralph Nader...

...Ever since Nixon journeyed to Wall Street after losing the 1962 California gubernatorial race, he has been devoured by his passion to accumulate enough capital to guarantee an upper-class lifestyle...

...An extreme example is former New York Representative Seymour Halpern...

...Sometimes legislators find themselves in serious trouble, as did recently retired Illinois Representative Ken Gray, who, according to The Washington Star, used left-over campaign funds to help buy his $40,000 houseboat, Rollcall...

...In the cutthroat world of Washington society, there are few...

...For an elected official without personal wealth, thi...

...He is desperately looking for ways to increase his cash flow...

...They enjoy the familiar comforts of an expensive country club and two vacations a year...

...But parties like this cement ties of friendship with those in public life...

...For some, these luxuries can serve as tangible reminders that they have arrived, that they actually are high government officials...

...Walter Shapiro is a contributing editor of The Washington Monthly who has recently worked in the Carter campaign and on the transition staff This article was originally published in April 1975...

...All he need do is follow the maxim that the perfect gift is something the recipient wants but would never buy for himself...

...Recently, Alaska Senator Mike Gravel was described by columnist Jack Anderson as “living beyond his means” to support a “$200,000 dream house...

...But the shrewder lobbyists know that the friendship of even uncormptible officeholders can be won with such blandishments as luxury vacations, elaborate dinners, introductions to celebrities, and the other perquisites of the American upper class...

...A governor like Marvin Mandel may be better known than almost all corporate executives, but he is forced to live on the maddeningly middleclass salary of $25,000...

...The 100 invited guests were served wild goose at Washington’s prestigious and genteelly subdued Madison Hotel...

...For Marvin Mandel, the favor was a vacation in Jamaica...

...What Park has done is increase the likelihood that leading public officials will deal with him on a personal rather than a bureaucratic level the next time he wants something from the United States government...

...If Park had been asked his motive for giving the party, he probably would have smiled and answered “friendship...

...Early this March, Jack Anderson reported that the former President “is deeply depressed over his finances...

...Obviously, some of these salary problems are ’ caused by expenses unique to Congress, such as maintaining two homes and frequent travel back to the home district...

...I’m Calling From My Car’ I am not making a case for asceticism...

...There are undoubtedly senators in Washington who are more likely to be swayed by a $30 lunch at an exclusive club that they don’t belong to than by a $300 campaign contribution...

...Such subtle courting by lobbyists is one of the major problems of American political life...

...Elegant Rather Than Political Last December, Tongsun Park, a somewhat mysterious Korean with a host of interests ranging from oil supertankers to the international rice trade, gave a birthday party for House Majority Leader “Tip” O’Neill...

...Antoinette Hatfield, for example, explained that her clothing costs tended to be high because “Senate wives are expected to look better than the average person...

...Some politicians overcome this problem by becoming so oblivious to reality that they actually live as if they were supported by accumulated capital rather than by their government salary...

...In his book, Inside the House, Daniel Rapoport provides this glimpse of a prominent House liberal: “Ben and Leila Rosenthal do not live opulently...

...The wives of both Mark Hatfield and John Tower, for example, are selling real estate...

...Take, for example, the exquisite indirection of Park’s going-away party for outgoing Attorney General William Saxbe...

...Kandy Stroud recently reported in New York that a number of Senate wives are being forced to go to work to help make ends meet...