Selling Out - Hardcover

Mark Green's first book on campaign finance, Who Runs Congress?, was a number one New York Times bestseller in 1972. After working with Ralph Nader for ten years in Washington, Green served for twelve years as New York City's consumer affairs commissioner and then as its first elected public advocate. In 2001, he was the Democratic nominee for the office of mayor of New York against Michael Bloomberg. Currently a distinguished visiting lecturer at the New York University School of Law, he recently founded the New Democracy Project, a national and urban affairs institute. Green and his family live in New York City.

Onetime New York mayoral candidate Green lashes out against the government's tradition of selling access to politicians to the highest bidder and pricing practically everyone-besides millionaires-out of the ability to participate in our democracy. Although it's easy to detect the scent of sour grapes in Green's screed (he lost the election to business information tycoon Bloomberg), dismissing his words for that reason alone would be foolish. Fortunately eschewing the pervasive idea that American democracy was once a virginal paradise unsullied by as base a thing as money, Green provides a quick but thorough overview of the history of money and influence in national politics (during the post-Civil War era, most legislators openly sold their votes). After showing how we got ourselves into this mess, Green paints a portrait of how exactly the millions of dollars sloshing around the corridors of power shades and corrupts the system. Green does not cover much new ground, but he admirably collects all the usual jeremiads about this subject into one propulsive narrative. Although a Democratic bias creeps in here and there, for the most part Green blames his own party as much as the Republicans, naming names in plenty of embarrassing instances.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.