Character is destiny, or at least close enough so for government work. Things that happen once almost always happen twice in peoples’ lives, the charitable, the criminal, the venal, and just about everything else where character, judgment and the passions are in play. Today we are treated to a story of questionable campaign giving in the LA Times, the paper that followed up most aggressively on the Wall Street Journal’s recounting of the adventures of the mysterious Mr. Hsu in August.

Indeed, the story opens up pretty much the same way as that story of two months ago, with poor, apolitical Chinese people suddenly having the urge to give massive amounts ($380,000 versus $24,000 in 2004) to a certain political campaign whose predecessors were previously well known for precisely these shenanigans. This whole thing is like a an old time radio serial or a movie and its sequels.

In the episode of ten years ago, our little play unfolded at a small Chinese restaurant in Little Rock, Arkansas; six weeks ago, we visited a modest bungalow at 41 Shelbourne Ave in Daly City, California; and today’s episode begins at 44 Henry St, a grimy restaurant in the heart of New York City’s Chinatown:

Something remarkable happened at 44 Henry St., a grimy Chinatown tenement with peeling walls. It also happened nearby at a dimly lighted apartment building with trash bins clustered by the front door. And again not too far away, at 88 E. Broadway beneath the Manhattan bridge, where vendors chatter in Mandarin and Fujianese as they hawk rubber sandals and bargain-basement clothes.

All three locations, along with scores of others scattered throughout some of the poorest Chinese neighborhoods in Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx, have been swept by an extraordinary impulse to shower money on one particular presidential candidate — Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Dishwashers, waiters and others whose jobs and dilapidated home addresses seem to make them unpromising targets for political fundraisers are pouring $1,000 and $2,000 contributions into Clinton’s campaign treasury. In April, a single fundraiser in an area long known for its gritty urban poverty yielded a whopping $380,000. When Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) ran for president in 2004, he received $24,000 from Chinatown…

Clinton has enlisted the aid of Chinese neighborhood associations, especially those representing recent immigrants from Fujian province. The organizations, at least one of which is a descendant of Chinatown criminal enterprises that engaged in gambling and human trafficking, exert enormous influence over immigrants. The associations help them with everything from protection against crime to obtaining green cards. Many of Clinton’s Chinatown donors said they had contributed because leaders in neighborhood associations told them to. In some cases, donors said they felt pressure to give…

The Times examined the cases of more than 150 donors who provided checks to Clinton after fundraising events geared to the Chinese community. One-third of those donors could not be found using property, telephone or business records. Most have not registered to vote, according to public records. And several dozen were described in financial reports as holding jobs — including dishwasher, server or chef — that would normally make it difficult to donate amounts ranging from $500 to the legal maximum of $2,300 per election…

The tenement at 44 Henry St. was listed in Clinton’s campaign reports as the home of Shu Fang Li, who reportedly gave $1,000. In a recent visit, a man, apparently drunk, was asleep near the entrance to the neighboring beauty parlor, the Nice Hair Salon. A tenant living in the apartment listed as Li’s address said through a translator that she had not heard of him, although she had lived there for the last 10 years.

All the eccentricities and exuberances of the nineties can be expected to reappear in some form over the next period, wizened no doubt but also more focused and extreme, conscious that time is shorter now. It’s like the movies: will the sequel be more interesting than the original? For example, did you prefer The Godfather or Godfather II, Vito Corleone or Michael Corleone?

Lightning always strikes twice — or more. A clever reporter might want to scan the major themes of certain human behavior in the 1993-2001 time frame and use these to shape some possible story lines for the next year; but then again, he might not.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 19th, 2007 at 10:36 am and is filed under China, Democrats, General, Law, MSM, business. 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.