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April 09, 2008
Bill vs. Barack
Russell Roberts
I just heard Stephen A. Smith on ESPN talking about the revelation that the Clintons had income of $109 million between 2000 and 2006 and that much of it came from Bill's speaking engagements. He made the observation that if Bill can make that much money as a post-Presidency speaker, imagine how much Barack Obama might make speaking after his Presidential term. After all, Barack is a better speaker than Bill.
The whole thing was a funny riff on money and politics and money and sports. And the Barack point may have been facetious. But it did remind me that Bill doesn't get paid for the quality of his speeches. He earns a great deal of money for two reasons. One is that people want to mingle and listen to celebrities of any kind. An ex-President, no matter how miserable an orator, can make a lot of money selling face time. But the real reason Bill is in demand is his wife. He's the husband of the Senator from New York and possibly the next President of the United States. People are paying for influence and access to power. They're buying a lottery ticket. Just one more reason that campaign finance laws are ridiculous. As the Washington Post reports:
Many of Bill Clinton's six-figure speeches have been made to companies whose employees and political action committees have been among Hillary Clinton's top backers in her Senate campaigns. The New York investment giant Goldman Sachs paid him $650,000 for four speeches in recent years. Its employees and PAC have given her $270,000 since 2000 -- putting it second on the list of her most generous political patrons.
The banking firm Citigroup, whose employees and PAC have been Hillary Clinton's top source of campaign donations, with more than $320,000, paid her husband $250,000 for a speech in France in 2004. Last year, it committed $5.5 million for Clinton's Global Initiative to help encourage entrepreneurship and financial education among the poor.
Unless Michelle Obama runs for office after the two terms of Barack, I doubt Barack will earn quite as much as Bill.
Posted by Russell Roberts in Politics | Permalink
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Comments
I don't think Obama can get elected in November, but he's played it very well so far. See: "Barack Obama: So Determined To Do Good!"
http://christianprophecy.blogspot.com/
Posted by: Christian Prophet | Apr 9, 2008 5:49:23 PM
How is this not a big-time facilitator of corruption? Instead of paying a sitting legislator a bribe, pay their spouse or other family member an absurdly large fee for some alleged service.
Posted by: Bob Smith | Apr 9, 2008 7:45:33 PM
1) Next time Stephen A. comes on ESPN, just mute your TV. You can still hear him, of course, but at least it sounds like he's using his 'inside voice.'
2) Yeah, you're right- this is just a big-time facilitator of corruption. No one would otherwise want to listen an ex-president with great oratory ability.
I saw Bill when he came to my campus in February, and I could care less about Hillary. If I had to guess, I'd say that over 50% of the people in the audience (5,000) or so ended up voting for Barack in the Wisconsin primary (this was at a Hillary rally, mind you).
But then again, maybe voting for Barack was just a way for us students to support Hillary- everyone knows that college students are radical leftists (especially in Madison), and therefore the general public will vote against us, leading to a victory for Hillary. How did you guys figure us out?
Posted by: Corey | Apr 9, 2008 9:06:54 PM
Corey,
There's a pretty big difference between students attending a free lecture from an ex-President, and a company paying six figures for a speech. Unless you and your fellow students paid $100 a head, in which case I am pretty surprised but your point holds.
Posted by: John Thacker | Apr 9, 2008 9:36:28 PM
To put it another way Corey, would you want your university to pay $250,000 out of your activity fees for one Bill Clinton speech, or would you prefer that money to go to the honoraria of many interesting speakers?
If you protest that your university didn't have to pay so much money for the ex-President; well, that brings up the question of why so many rich companies would.
Posted by: John Thacker | Apr 9, 2008 9:38:25 PM
I thought McCain's law ended corruption in political campaigns. I am so dissolutioned. Quite Frankly, I am voting for Stephen A. Smith for president.
Posted by: REW | Apr 9, 2008 10:52:43 PM
Doesn't muting a Tv generally remove all sound as opposed to reducing it to "inside voice" levels?
Now, I don't care how much people pay to listen to someone talk. What bugs me is that those of us who are honest about donating to campaigns are limited in how much we can do, while those who can drop a big chunk of change can simply pay a candidate or their spouse a pile of cash and skate by. A clear demonstration as to why campaign finance laws are silly, and a testament as to the ingenuity of humans who want to get something done.
Posted by: Hammer | Apr 10, 2008 9:00:44 AM
"I just heard Stephen A. Smith on ESPN talking...The whole thing was a funny riff..."
Stephen A. Smith and funny in the same post, and without a "not" inbetween? My head asplodes.
Posted by: Avatar300 | Apr 10, 2008 9:28:37 AM
I can't believe that here, at an economics blog, commenters are claiming that people will pay for things they don't value. Why would these folks pay Bill if his presence didn't create value for them? I guess people here aren't honest free-marketers: free trade in goods and services creates value, unless the service is Bill Clinton's speech, which people obviously cannot derive value from unless it's for nefarious purposes.
Well guess what, you don't get to decide what other people value!
Posted by: brian | Apr 10, 2008 10:00:41 AM
Having watched the last democratic convention, my husband & I both agreed that the best speaker of the event was Bill Clinton who managed to completely upstage the candidate, John Kerry. Neither of us has ever liked Bill Clinton so his ability as a speaker is pretty good if he can win us over.
Bill Clinton connects with people on an emotional level. Barack Obama is intelligent, and eloquent but he is as warm as an atomiton. One appeals to the emotional centres of the limbic brain and the other to the pre-frontal cortex. The success of Barack has been such that he will doubtless be in demand as a speaker but he will never have what Bill's got.
Bill Clinton was able to get people to overlook endless scandals and problems. By contrast, most politicians are pilloried for such things (the mayor of Detroit or Elliot Spitzer for example). The rules of conduct have not changed. Bill Clinton, however, was exempted from them. The interesting part about the brain is that once the emotional limbic centre has decided that a person is a "good guy" no amount of evidence to the contrary can shake that initial decision to trust.
Even when we watched Bill Clinton lie "I never had sex (blink, blink, blink)...with that woman". We know rapid eye blinking is a sign that someone is lying but people wanted to overlook his indiscretions. It was "that Monika", "that Paula", or "that right wing conspiracy". That is quite a feat.
Posted by: Cassandra | Apr 10, 2008 11:59:03 AM
brian: rent seeking...check it out.
Posted by: shawn | Apr 10, 2008 2:48:43 PM
I'm quite mystified as to why people hate Bush so much when his policies are overall pretty similar to Clinton. I guess it's the aesthetic principle at work. Bill Clinton had this image of "I feel your pain", and Bush comes off as a smug Texas cowboy oil man, with a swagger to boot. That riles up too many sensibilities.
Posted by: FreedomLover | Apr 10, 2008 3:31:37 PM
Lets try to check the facts on this:
"But the real reason Bill is in demand is his wife. He's the husband of the Senator from New York and possibly the next President of the United States. People are paying for influence and access to power. They're buying a lottery ticket."
1. Lets break down speech earnings year-wise.
2001: 9.2 million (59 speeches)
2002: 9.5 million (59 speeches)
2003: 3,7 million (23 speeches)
2004: 875,000 (much fewer than normal because he was writing his memoirs and had a bypass surgery)
2005: 7.5 million (43 speeches)
2006: 10 million (57 paid speeches)
2007: 10,145,000 (data for number of speeches not available)
No siginificant difference between 2001-2003 (when HRC was not running for president) and 2005-2007 (when she is) in annual earnings.
2. Most of the fees come from abroad. Foreign agents buying influence perhaps?
References:
http://projects.washingtonpost.com/2007/clinton-speeches/list/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/22/AR2007022202189.html
http://www.hillaryclinton.com/feature/returns/
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/06/14/bill.clinton.speeches/index.html
Isnt it better to be careful and fact check before putting such lines out.
Posted by: Neeraj Krishnan | Apr 10, 2008 3:42:00 PM
"No siginificant difference between 2001-2003 (when HRC was not running for president) and 2005-2007 (when she is) in annual earnings."
In my humble opinion,HRC started running for president before she first ran for the senate. Running for the senate was all part of the plan.
Posted by: Dano | Apr 10, 2008 4:05:23 PM
neeraj,
Do you really think that the folks at Goldman Sachs really wanted to hear him speak four times?
Smells like outright bribery to me, which is pretty typical of their history in Arkansas.
Posted by: happyjuggler0 | Apr 11, 2008 12:46:30 AM
That's just it Neeraj, you hit the nail on the head. Whether they think Bill Clinton's speach is worth the money is irrelevant, because people should be able to pay as much as they are willing for something. Despite Brian's wailing and moaning about faux economists, that is not the issue at hand.
The issue is that if I wanted to pay a cool million to a candidate for President, it is now illegal thanks to McCain/Feingold. If I paid her husband a million to speak at my company, that's cool. Are you seeing the issue? Directly and honestly saying "I want to donate money to the prospect of this lady getting into office" is illegal. Indirectly giving her money by paying her husband to speak at my company, that's ok. So I can do it, I just can't be honest and forthright about it. There will be no record that "Hammer paid Hillary 1$ million in campaign donations." There is simply "Hammer paid Bill some money to speak."
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