With friends like these

Herb Miller is one of the leading developers in the city, and a big fundraiser for local politicians running for office. Loose Lips, the political column in the Washington City Paper, had a great column about Miller's "role" last May, see this blog entry, "A superb lesson in DC "growth machine" politics from Loose Lips (Washington City Paper)."

Anyway, this was in today's papers, including the Washington Business Journal, "Developer sues D.C. over stadium parking proposal." Herb Miller isn't "happy" that DC Government has moved on beyond his proposal to build parking structures at the baseball stadium. Of course, at the end of the day, the Lerners will build them, and make the money from them.

Still, it shows that letting people use your house for fundraising events and providing campaign donations isn't always enough to get your way every single time you approach the DC Government for deals.

Also see this column by Harry Jaffe from the Examiner, "Money, power and political winds shift in Georgetown."
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In 1987 I ran for City Council in Ann Arbor, because no other Democrat was willing to do so in that ward that year. At a Party meeting, one of the ex-Councilmembers who was then working in Lansing, the State Capital, recounted a quote from one the old pols there:

"If you can't drink their booze, take their money, [x] their [x], and then vote against them, you have no business being here."

Would that DC politicians learn this lesson.

(Of course, at some point in college, I also read John Foster Dulles' quote: "The U.S. does not have friends. It has interests.")

Index Keywords: Growth-Machine