Lewis, Charles and the Center for Public Integrity. The Buying of the
President 2004. New York: Perennial (HarperCollins), 2004. 507 pages.
There was one of these in 1996 that was 271 pages, another in 2000
that was 368 pages, and this one is 507 pages. The bloat is mostly because
the Center for Public Integrity is assigning more researchers. It may also
be true that in every new presidential election, the candidates are more
corrupt than the last time, and there's more to write about. This one covers
Bush and Cheney, Wesley Clark, Howard Dean, John Edwards, Richard Gephardt,
Bob Graham, John Kerry, Dennis Kucinich, Joe Lieberman, Carol Moseley Braun,
and Al Sharpton. It looks at past scandals, major campaign contributors, and
the special interests favored by each candidate.
With the 2000 and 2004 elections the electoral process itself became
deeply suspicious. Since this book was published before the 2004 election,
all we get is a chapter on the Florida debacle of 2000. In the next edition
in 2008 they should take a look at Ohio in 2004, the Electoral College, and
who's behind electronic voting.
Will it matter by then? That's the key question one is left with
after reading this book with post-2004 hindsight. Does it matter at all,
or will any effort to research the electoral process in the expectation of
encouraging reform, always end up as too little and too late?
ISBN 0-06-054853-3
Extract the names from this source
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