Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

Bob McDonnell’s All-Too-Human Story

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by

James A. Bacon
in ,

mcdonnellsby James A. Bacon

In reading highlights of the indictment against former Governor Bob McDonnell and his wife Maureen, I alternate between having sympathy for the governor and wanting to cuff him across the back of his head. How could he have gotten himself into such a situation?

We knew from previous reports that the McDonnells were facing financial difficulties resulting from ill-advised investments during the mid-2000s real estate boom. Now we discover that the McDonnells had run up their credit card debt as well. To quote a Maureen McDonnell email noted in the Times-Dispatch:

Bob is screaming about the thousands I’m charging up in credit card debt. We are broke, have an unconscionable amount in credit card debt already, and this Inaugural is killing us!!

It seems that Ms. McDonnell was out of control. Despite having run up the family credit cards, she wanted more stuff… and she didn’t mind asking Star Scientific CEO Jonnie Williams Sr. to get it for her: a designer dress by Oscar de la Renta for the inauguration, dresses and accessories for her daughter’s wedding, her daughter’s wedding banquet, a Rolex watch for her husband, a vacation at Williams’ lake house.

It does not appear that McDonnell initiated any of this but he did not have the cajones to put a stop to it. Indeed, he happily wore the $6,500 watch that Maureen gave him. Any normal husband in his financial straits would have asked, “Er, Maureen, that’s a lovely gift but… are you out of your cotton pickin’ mind? Where did you get the money to buy this?”

You’d also think that, living on a governor’s salary of $175,000 a year — a $25,000-a-year pay raise over his attorney general salary — and enjoying rent-free residency in the Governor’s Mansion, the McDonnells could have gotten their finances in order. But curtailing her lifestyle spending apparently was not at the top of Ms. McDonnell’s agenda.

Now there’s only one thing standing between the McDonnells and enduring disgrace: the hope that a judge and jury will buy McDonnell’s argument that he never promised any favors or attempted to influence anyone to provide state benefits to Williams. The indictment, he said in his public statement yesterday, “rests entirely on a misguided legal theory, and that is that facilitating an introduction for a meeting, appearing at a reception or expressing support for a Virginia business is a serious federal crime if it involved a political donor or someone who gave an official a gift.”

I have sympathy for that argument. I still haven’t seen evidence that McDonnell provided substantive favors in return for the gifts and loans. But I have zero sympathy for the behavior that created the furor in the first place. There is no shame for a governor of humble financial means to live a humble life in the Governor’s Mansion. Harry Truman, how we miss ye.

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11 responses to “Bob McDonnell’s All-Too-Human Story”

  1. NewVirginia Avatar
    NewVirginia

    I have a similar see-saw reaction to this. I think the governor clearly exercised poor judgment and probably deserves to have his political career ended. But I can certainly understand the temptation. Politicians in this country are often people who have already made some money or find a way to do so (T-Mac and Mark Warner). The McDonnells weren’t particularly savvy businesspeople and didn’t have a large family fortune to work from.

    The governor’s salary is a funny thing. On the one hand, $175,000 and free rent is tons of money – lots more than the average Virginian makes and certainly enough for the position. On the other hand, taken on its own, it’s really just an upper-middle class income – comparable to that of a successful lawyer, manager, or run-of-the-mill doctor. But as governor, the people you are interacting with constantly are the high-powered elite of the Commonwealth, as well as politicians who have made fortunes elsewhere. It’s easy to see how one could start to perceive oneself as needing more to keep up with the crowd.

    That said – even that defense of the McDonnells points to their larger problem. A friend of mine who works in state politics once told me Mrs. McDonnell could be quite difficult to talk to and displayed an overly inflated view of her and her husband’s position as the “First Family of Virginia.” She may feel that as the governor and governor’s wife, they deserve the best and have to look as good as possible – and that case may be bolstered for them by seeing their peers who came in with money – but that’s just not how politics works in the United States. It’s one of the beautiful things about this country that even our highest leaders have to live within their means. It doesn’t matter that you’re the governor. If you don’t have money, you can’t have nice things. And voters understand that – that’s what gets me. The McDonnells could have been much more admirable and popular figures if they had taken their money problems as an opportunity to cultivate a middle-class image rather than feeling the need to be style icons.

  2. salz Avatar
    salz

    While the “fall” is always a good story, at the same time the McDonnells are, as of last week, “history” in terms of the governance of Virginia. Gov McDonnell’s true legacy in the policies and programs that he pushed through should be the larger part of most discussions, I submit.

    As all of this is going on, the governor’s absurd tax on hybrids is collapsing in the background with both House and Senate committees (and the full Senate) repealing the $64 (not $100 like Gov McDonnell originally wanted) charge to people who have been trying to decrease their greenhouse emissions and energy consumption. At the same time, his building- highways-everywhere-with-borrowed-money programs aren’t falling apart; his tax milk and bread to build more highways programs are still with us; his pay the tolling companies even more tax dollars if 50 percent of public-private HOT lane vehicles are carpools is also around.

    Speaker of the House Howell has called for return on investment studies for transportation projects to try and rein in some of the absurd spending and there are similar bills in front of the legislature. Let’s talk about those “future” issues a bit more.

    To me, the best bumper sticker on the planet is: “What we learn from history is that we fail to learn from history” so I’m not opposed to discussing history. But let’s please begin analyzing, discussing the former governor’s policies and how they are being — and might be — adapted to our true state needs in hopes that our new policy makers will make better decisions.

  3. cpzilliacus Avatar
    cpzilliacus

    James A. Bacon wrote:

    You’d also think that, living on a governor’s salary of $175,000 a year — a $25,000-a-year pay raise over his attorney general salary — and enjoying rent-free residency in the Governor’s Mansion, the McDonnells could have gotten their finances in order. But curtailing her lifestyle spending apparently was not at the top of Ms. McDonnell’s agenda.

    Jim, this brings back a lot of bad memories from the 1960’s and 1970’s for this Marylander. We had Spiro “Ted” Agnew, who had been taking bribes from his days as Baltimore County Executive in the early 1960’s, which continued after he won the 1966 election for governor (as a moderate) against the racist Democratic nominee George P. Mahoney. After Agnew was elected Vice President, the capable Marvin Mandel took over as governor, who was to get in trouble with federal prosecutors, was convicted, and served time in prison (though eventually his convictions were vacated as a result of a ruling in another case). Mandel’s case reminds me more than a little of Gov. and Mrs. McDonnell, and a common thread is this – Mandel was not paid a sufficiently high salary, and I do not believe that McDonnell was either. Paying a governor a decently high salary is smart policy (and remember that governors are to a large extent expected to work every day while they are in office – unlike members of the General Assembly).

    Both Mandel and McDonnell are basically decent guys that did dumb things while in office, which drew the attention of the Justice Department.

  4. cpzilliacus Avatar
    cpzilliacus

    NewVirginia wrote [with Emphasis added]:

    A friend of mine who works in state politics once told me Mrs. McDonnell could be quite difficult to talk to and displayed an overly inflated view of her and her husband’s position as the “First Family of Virginia.” She may feel that as the governor and governor’s wife, they deserve the best and have to look as good as possible – and that case may be bolstered for them by seeing their peers who came in with money – but that’s just not how politics works in the United States. It’s one of the beautiful things about this country that even our highest leaders have to live within their means.

    This is correct – but – $175,000 is a very small salary for someone that is the chief executive officer of an enterprise as large and complicated as the executive branch of the government of the Commonwealth of Virginia.

  5. Les Schreiber Avatar
    Les Schreiber

    The thing I have never understood about this is; What did Jonnie Williams receive in return for the gifts ? It seems a bit over the top for the feds to go after Gov Bob :we see the quid but where is the quo . I can see where the governor of a tobacco state might have an interest in promoting a non-smoking use for the crop.

    We all know that this state has some of the worst ethics laws in the country and these must be changed.Perhaps,financial disclosure on the part of candidates would be a good place to start. It seems Gov Bob had financial problems before he entered office.
    We also don’t want to create a system where only the wealthy run for public office.This thing has the makings of a bad TV series about the evils of greed and politics mixing.

  6. Peter Galuszka Avatar
    Peter Galuszka

    Les,
    WHo is Johnny Johnson? WHat has he got to do with McDonnell?

    1. James A. Bacon Avatar
      James A. Bacon

      I’m guessing that Les meant Jonnie Williams

      1. James A. Bacon Avatar
        James A. Bacon

        I have edited Les’ comment to reflect what I believe was his true intent.

  7. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    1. – If McDonnell cannot be fiscally responsible for his own affairs…..

    just saying..

    2. Why does the Gov himself have to pay for events?

  8. Breckinridge Avatar
    Breckinridge

    The emotional reaction is fading, but two days after the shock of reading the indictment and after reading this morning’s summary of the defense, a couple of thoughts:

    It is probably correct that the actions that Mr. and Mrs. McDonnell took to promote Mr. Williams’s untested patent medicine were not dissimilar from other efforts to promote Virginia companies. Many governors consider it part of their jobs to promote Virginia products. Fine.

    It is also true that other governors have accepted gifts, some of them from people with something to gain from a happy and contented governor. But the behavior of the McDonnell’s in milking — that’s a good term — milking this generous benefactor goes absolutely beyond the pale. Mrs. McDonnell’s discussion of the loan in proximity to discussion of helping promote is product didn’t cross the line, it left the line completely out of sight. A jury might call that soliciting a bribe.

    The defense really bothers me because it throws everybody who has operated by the rules — governors, lobbyists, state vendors, people seeking appointments — under the bus. “This is no big deal, everybody does this” really is saying Virginia is deeply corrupt. The defense is going to do more damage to Virginia’ reputation than the McDonnell’s behavior did.

  9. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    well said Breckinridge ..!!

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