So why the trip dowm memory lane? Because the Obama campaign just announced that Mr. Corzine is still on the list of top-tier bundlers for the Obama re-election campaign. Mr. Corzine has raised more than half a million dollars for Mr. Obama…Whatever happened to changing how Washington works? We’re about to enter a very long campaign in which an apparently squeaky-clean Mitt Romney is going to be demonized for his success and dragged through the gutter. Meanwhile, Mr. Obama took cash from a true denizen of the gutter.” Jonah Goldberg, ‘Obama’s tainted bundler’, The Washington Times, April 25, 2012
Jon Corzine has established an inimitable record for failing his way up the corporate and political ladder, while filling his own pockets with money not always his own.
Forced out of Goldman Sachs, following a power struggle for a government bailout of Long-Term Capital Management, Corzine neatly pocketed $500 million when the company went public. He spent $62 million of that money-pile to purchase a New Jersey seat in the United States Senate. The newly elected Senator conveniently struck up a personal relationship with Carla Katz, also married, but head of Local 1034 of the Communications Workers of America. When that extra-marital union disintegrated, after Local 1034 had already endorsed Mr. Corzine and lobbied (unsuccessfully) for his Senate re-election, Jon Corzine paid her off with some $6 million.
The newly-liberated Corzine then expended $40 million in 2005 to purchase the Governorship of New Jersey. When he ran for re-election in 2009, both President Obama and Vice-President Biden stumped on his behalf, the latter raving about Corzine’s economic and financial smarts. The Governor went down in defeat in that re-election bid to reformer Chris Christie, who has since transformed the New Jersey economy. Who truly had the smarts is not now in question. As usual, Joe Biden’s judgment was way off base.
Unchastened by his defeat, Corzine hastened back to Wall Street, where the real greenbacks reside. He became chief executive officer of MF Global Holdings, a bond -trading firm that relied on Jon Corzine’s contacts in Washington to steer the company into lucrative waters. Well, Corzine steered the company into deep waters, but not of the kind that they had anticipated. At MF Global, Jon Corzine bet more than $6 billion on the European sovereign debt crisis, using borrowed client money. Worse still, Jon Corzine commingled client and company funds to pay off financial obligations. That is illegal. Somehow, Jon Corzine physically misplaced $1.6 billion of client monies. That money-pile cannot be located. Before the 2012 campaign ends, Jon Corzine will be bundling bagmoney for the Obama campaign out of Rikers rather than out of Wall Street.
Almost inevitably, when dirty money has passed through enough ‘white gloves’, no one can tell whether that money is dirty or clean. At the end of the day, Jon Corzine may hope to receive a personal presidential pardon for any mishaps along his snakes and ladders journey through corporate and political markets.
Of course, that hope may not materialize in practice. Once back in office for his second-term, even the Messiah’s memory about past promises may quickly fade. Any other Local 1034 femaleleader out there in New Jersey, interested in dating a badly-treated gentleman endowed with sound long-term prospects?
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