Will some of the Obama mega-bundlers be left out in the cold?
by Ken
It was a day you'll never forget -- Career Day at your junior high school. You stopped first at the booth where you picked up the brochure The Brass Tacks of Carpet-Laying, because your mother always told you, "The economy goes up, the economy goes down, people still gotta have carpets." You talk to the Postal Service recruiter because your Uncle Ray always said, "Get a job with the post office, you're set for life." Thinking you might want to try for the big bucks, and knowing you've always been good at rhyming words, you pick up the brochure Make Your Fortune in Poetry.
Then in the corner booth you glimpse your future in the form of the little man in the three piece suit with the moustache (the little man, that is, not the suit) handing out copies of Democracy and the Art of Mega-Bundling. And you know you've found your life's calling, a commitment to promoting democracy where successful promoters are rewarded in the end with an ambassadorship. Sweet!
And ever since, you've dutifully mega-bundled your way up the ladder to the mega-bundlers' launchpad. The time comes when your mega-bundling helps push your guy over the top, and it's time to cash in. You're just waiting to hear what it'll be. Ivory Coast? Paraguay? The Seychelles? And then you start to hear rumors, and can hardly believe your ears, but it turns out to be true: The corps of deserving mega-bundlers now exceeds the supply of embassies!
Good-bye, Togo! Sayonara, Papua New Guinea! What's a dedicated mega-bundler to do?
And so, a dream may come true, more or less, for one deserving mega-bundler. But how many warriors for democracy are still left out in the cold? For all of you, the dream dies hard.
A Montreal posting for an Obama mega-bundler?
By Al Kamen, Published: November 26
Recent news has it that the embassy in Paris is going to one of the three Janes — Jane Hartley, a top bundler and head of the Observatory Group — and that Dublin is going to one of the Missouri Carnahans — in this case Tom Carnahan, brother of former congressman Russ Carnahan (D).
There are still some fine spots — such as Costa Rica, the Bahamas and Switzerland — without official nominees, but it’s likely that candidates are penciled in for the jobs.
This is troublesome, especially for Obama mega-bundlers — and there were so many — looking for their due. After all, it’s hard to create new countries. But maybe jobs previously filled by non-bundlers can go to worthy contributors?
For example, one of those nominees left on the floor when the Senate recessed was Los Angeles lawyer Michael Lawson, a major Democratic contributor and Obama mega-bundler (up to $500,000 in both 2008 and 2012, according to the Center for Responsive Politics) who was in line to be the U.S. representative to the International Civil Aviation Organization, headquartered in Montreal.
Traditionally, the ICAO job (cold up there, but it comes with an apartment) has been given to someone skilled in aviation safety and security matters, said Kenneth Pillsbury, a former Federal Aviation Administration chief counsel and now general counsel of the Flight Safety Foundation. “It’s never been considered an outpost for financial contributors.”
President Bill Clinton’s envoys to ICAO, a U.N. organization that deals with air safety and security, were Carol Carmody, a former FAA official and vice chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, and Edward Stimpson, the longest-serving head of the General Aviation Manufacturers Association (and later head of the Flight Safety Foundation).
George W. Bush’s picks were Donald Bliss, a career aviation lawyer and former general counsel to Transportation Secretary William Coleman. Obama’s first rep, Duane Woerth, is an international pilot who headed the Air Line Pilots Association.
Lawson is the former head of law firm Skadden Arps’s executive compensation and employee benefits group in the Los Angeles office, according to a 2008 firm directory.
It should be noted that he is, in fact, well versed in some aviation issues. The White House noted that he has served on the Los Angeles World Airports’ Board of Airport Commissioners since 2005 and is its immediate past president.
And raising all that money shouldn’t be held against him.
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