An interesting report in the WSJ on some campaign contributions:

DALY CITY, Calif. — One of the biggest sources of political donations to Hillary Rodham Clinton is a tiny, lime-green bungalow that lies under the flight path from San Francisco International Airport…On a recent day, a coiled garden hose rested next to a dilapidated garden with a half-dozen dried out plants. The din of traffic from a nearby freeway was occasionally drowned out by jumbo jets…

Six members of the Paw family, each listing the house at 41 Shelbourne Ave. as their residence, have donated a combined $45,000 to the Democratic senator from New York since 2005, for her presidential campaign, her Senate re-election last year and her political action committee. In all, the six Paws have donated a total of $200,000 to Democratic candidates since 2005, election records show. That total ranks the house with residences in Greenwich, Conn., and Manhattan’s Upper East Side among the top addresses to donate to the Democratic presidential front-runner…

It isn’t obvious how the Paw family is able to afford such political largess. Records show they own a gift shop and live in a 1,280-square-foot house that they recently refinanced for $270,000. William Paw, the 64-year-old head of the household, is a mail carrier with the U.S. Postal Service who earns about $49,000 a year, according to a union representative. Alice Paw, also 64, is a homemaker. The couple’s grown children have jobs ranging from account manager at a software company to “attendance liaison” at a local public high school. One is listed on campaign records as an executive at a mutual fund.

The Paws’ political donations closely track donations made by Norman Hsu, a wealthy New York businessman in the apparel industry who once listed the Paw home as his address…He is on the board of directors of the New School in New York. News stories in the mid-1980s said he criticized trade policies that made it harder to import goods from China.

Mr. Hsu is also a major fund-raiser for Mrs. Clinton and other Democrats…Mr. Hsu has pledged to raise $100,000 or more for Mrs. Clinton, earning the title of “HillRaiser” along with a few hundred other top financial backers of her campaign. Earlier this year, he co-hosted a fund-raiser that raised $1 million for Mrs. Clinton at the Beverly Hills, Calif., home of billionaire Ron Burkle. He is listed as a co-host for another Clinton fund-raiser next month in northern California.

The Paw family is just one set of donors whose political donations are similar to Mr. Hsu’s. Several business associates of Mr. Hsu in New York have made donations to the same candidates, on the same dates for similar amounts as Mr. Hsu.

On four separate dates this year, the Paw family, Mr. Hsu and five of his associates gave Mrs. Clinton a total of $47,500. In all, the family, Mr. Hsu and his associates have given Mrs. Clinton $133,000 since 2005 and a total of nearly $720,000 to all Democratic candidates…

The paragraph that is missing from the Wall Street Journal article is the one that raises the question of whether the Hsu and Paw family story is reminiscent of that of Yah Lin “Charlie” Trie, the Chinese restaurant owner in Little Rock who was indicted for 1996 campaign shenanigans and fled to China. According to the Washington Post, “Information released by the Democratic National Committee showed that three fund-raisers –- Trie, John Huang and Johnny Chung, were responsible for raising $2.2 million -– or 79 percent -– of the $2.8 million in questionable or illegal contributions returned this year.” Maybe 2008 could be entertaining after all.

UPDATE

Just for the sake of nostalgia, and not to imply any similarity between the 1996 story and today’s, it might be amusing to recall what Trie was up to in the last decade. Washington Post:

According to the FBI, Trie opened an import-export business in 1990. It failed to make any money, so Trie decided to move to Washington in 1994, where he opened an office in the Watergate complex and became a Democratic fund-raiser and man about town.

Also in 1994, Trie became business partners with Macao businessman Ng Lap Seng, and encouraged him to donate to the Democrats. Trie’s businesses also received more than $1.4 million in foreign wire transfers, much of it from Ng. Trie arranged for Wang Jun, chairman of a Chinese arms-trading company, to be invited to a White House coffee.

In March 1996, Trie turned over two manila envelopes containing checks and money orders for more than $450,000 to a defense fund set up to help the Clintons pay their legal bills. The fund returned about $70,000 of this immediately, but deposited $378,300. Two months later, after the fund ordered an investigation, the rest of the money also was returned. The investigation found that some of the money came from sequentially numbered money orders, supposedly from different people in different cities, but all apparently signed in the same handwriting.

Trie was convicted of campaign law violations in 1998. Up until now, when we have written about China, it’s mostly about business and economic matters, and the amazing urbanization and wealth creation that is taking place at dizzying speed. It would appear that maybe there are other things to focus on as well.

UPDATE II

Of course it goes without saying that, following in the tradition of Mark Foley, creepy Republicans are doing their part to level the playing field and make the upcoming political season unbearably gross.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 28th, 2007 at 7:31 am and is filed under China, Democrats, Law, Republicans, business, idiots!. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.