Give-back

Sen. Hillary Clinton's (D-NY) presidential campaign will return about $850,000 in contributions raised by Norman Hsu, recently revealed to have been on the lam from a fraud conviction in California at the time he became a major Democratic fundraiser.

(The real scandal here is that California authorities couldn't find this guy for more than 15 years. It's not like he was hiding.)

This is a real blow to the Clinton campaign. Not only is it expensive--even in this election cycle, where raising $200 million is widely considered the entry fee for a successful candidacy, giving back almost a million dollars is a real cost--but it will be another item for those who question Hillary's electability. Surely, the GOPhers will use Hsu and his contributions (he gave lesser amounts to Obama and many other Democrats) as evidence that the culture of corruption is bipartisan.

The Hsu case is a blow to all Democrats, for that very reason, but clearly it is a bigger knock on Hillary than her competitors.

I am not a big fan of Hillary (Hillary Clinton, that is; I AM a big fan of my daughter, Hillary), but I question when a candidate and her campaign are supposed to be put on guard about a donor. In the supercharged atmosphere that must surround any successful campaign, the pressure to take the money and worry about where it came from later is immense. In Hsu's case, he had apparently not asked for any favors (not that Democrats have been able to bestow many, at least on the federal level, since 2001), which made his money all the more welcome.

If Clinton has a real weakness on this scandal--besides being by far the largest recipient of Hsu's largesse--it is that she has not disdained contributions from lobbyists and others close to the levers of power (as Obama has), but has welcomed them. Still, blaming her for taking money from an apparently legitimate businessman is tarring her with the brush of guilt by association, and that is wrong.