The Cost Of Campaigns
Via The New York Times
Beyond its durable imprint on American civic life, the Watergate scandal of four decades ago left its mark on political language. For one thing, that suffix will not go away. Commit a major folly, and you can count on some headline writer describing it as Whatever-gate. Forty years later, investigations into wrongdoing by public officials still routinely yield the Watergate-era chestnut: What did so-and-so know, and when did he know it? Americans are well aware, too, that they would be wise to “follow the money,” abiding words bequeathed by the shadowy figure Deep Throat in “All the President’s Men,” the 1976 Watergate-themed film.
“Follow the money” was sound advice in the 1970s. It is even more sensible these days, when cash courses through American politics like a flash flood.
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