Dartblog

A reader notes more hypocrisy on campaign finance rules from John Mathias ‘69, the man trying to silence Dartmouth administration critics by “studying” whether they should be allowed to fund their campaigns. Not only did Mr. Mathias drop a huge amount of money—$31,900, to be exact—on political donations in the 2008 election cycle, but he batted for both teams. Mr. Mathias made donations of $1,000 or more to both Barack Obama and John McCain, as well as to Hillary Clinton, Rudy Giuliani, and Arlen Specter. He did this despite having a clear choice in the race—his donations to the Obama camp totaled $16,600, with an additional $10,000 to the Democratic National Committee, while he could scrape together no more than $1,000 for Senator McCain.

The reader elaborates:

I realized as you did that by comparing the amounts, it is pretty clear to us now that he supported Obama. But when the McCain camp received its check, I am sure they began treating him as a major supporter, with whatever information, appreciation and privileges that might entail. In national politics, most people do not give at big-bucks levels just to help the candidate, but to help themselves when and if the candidate wins.

It is worse than treating both evenly. It is throwing a bone to one side to pretend you are with them, when in fact you are in direct opposition.

This is just what he did when he and his “Unity Slate” told alumni they would work for parity through means other than the lawsuit, when in reality they worked with the administration to end parity forever.