Clinton's Black-Box Candidacy

Election 2008: An ambitious presidential front-runner. A hot scramble for campaign cash. A corner-cutting past. And now red lights are flashing that she could be in hock to foreign interests. This is going downhill fast.

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How else does one explain the cash rolling in to Hillary Clinton's campaign from residents of Manhattan's impoverished Chinatown?

The Los Angeles Times on Friday uncovered an amazingly generous spirit of giving from Fujianese immigrant dishwashers and trinket sellers, hundreds of whom "spontaneously" coughed up $1,000 or $2,000 apiece for Clinton's presidential campaign. The $380,000 from their giving dwarfed the $24,000 that John Kerry raised there for his run for the White House in 2004.

Worse yet, when the Times checked the donors, more than a third couldn't be found and most weren't registered to vote. Some didn't even have green cards. Immigrant associations were cited as the nexus of the giving, but in a high-cost city where local per capita income is $21,000, it doesn't add up. In fact, it raises the question that someone is buying influence.

This Times story follows an earlier bombshell about Norman Hsu, one of Clinton's most valued fundraisers, who brought in $850,000 before he was exposed as a swindler on the lam.

Hsu's "bundling" of contributions from immigrants and people of low means in his debt had all the signs of proxy giving from someone hidden and higher up. As media scrutiny intensified, much of the largesse was returned to keep the heat off and the law at bay.

Clinton's campaign is so full of questionable transactions that even the Nation, a left-wing magazine, has dug up a mysterious influence peddler named Alan Quasha who hires Clinton operatives and has links to top Clinton's top fundraisers.

Meanwhile, the online magazine Salon is wondering why the Clintons are not disclosing the identities of donors to the William J. Clinton Foundation as it increases its cash intake just as Hillary becomes the presidential front-runner. Bill Clinton refuses to release their names because he says they gave anonymously. Could they too be foreign and looking to buy influence?

For the mainstream media, and especially those on the left side of the spectrum, to rouse themselves to such reporting is unusual. It points to something very dramatic, like a threat to democracy.

Sen. Clinton knows that enforcing election laws is difficult. When she gets called out, she returns the cash, pleads ignorance, claims a vetting glitch and returns to normal.

Unfortunately, the odds of getting caught are low, the political costs are slight and the sanctions are so light they invite lawbreaking. Most candidates won't go over the line, but a bounder like Hillary may cynically calculate that voters are easily distracted.

But things aren't the same as they were in the days of Whitewater. That Clinton scandal may have been hard for the public to grasp, but the current shenanigans are not. News outlets are picking them up with ease and can describe them in a couple of sentences.

Also, the advent of FEC databases and political cash Web sites such as campaignmoney.com and opensecrets.com are providing transparency and easy access to financing information. They show who is buying whom in the electoral races, and bloggers and pundits are on it. If Hillary thinks this will dissipate like Whitewater, she is mistaken.

Voters must pay attention to this because for the first time in our history, we could be electing a Manchurian candidate — someone who is loyal to foreign and unseen donors rather than voters.

What do these hidden interests want in exchange for marshaling the dishwashers of Chinatown to contribute to Clinton's campaign coffers? What has she promised them in exchange?

Knowing that the Chinese seek greater access to U.S. technology, how will this serve their national interests over our own? Will voters find themselves in the situation of watching a President Hillary Clinton sit on her hands after an American aircraft is shot down because of what someone in Beijing knows about cash she accepted?

For now, Sen. Clinton needs to start answering questions about the mysterious patterns in her campaign donations. Better yet, the electoral system needs to be strengthened with far tougher laws and penalties so that this doesn't endanger our democracy.