April 19, 2001, Thursday

SECTION: Opinion; Pg. 12A

LENGTH: 430 words

HEADLINE: Maria Cantwell more like seniors than she knew

BYLINE: Bill Hall

BODY:
   Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington state was more accurate than she realized when she assured everyone during her campaign that she would be sympathetic to the needs and woes of senior citizens. Just as some retirement portfolios have been savaged by a contrary stock market, so too have the good intentions of Cantwell in wanting to keep herself clear of financial entanglements.

   The decline of tech stocks hit her portfolio especially hard, reducing her overnight from a person of many millions to a person of a few million. That doesn't exactly mean she is destitute nor does she claim to be. But it derailed her good intentions. She suddenly became unable to fund a campaign out of her own pocket quite so readily as she expected.

   In fact, to pay off campaign bills, she has resorted to common fund raising among those who want to influence her -- putting her pretty much in the same boat with all the other for-hire hacks in Washington.

   She may also have got sloppy in the way she borrowed money from a bank. The National Legal and Policy Center, a conservative watchdog group, has filed a complaint alleging she didn't provide sufficient collateral for one loan and she got most-favored-senator rates -- below the market norm -- on two loans.

   If true, the law is fussy about that because such devices could be a way for a bank to, in effect, make an excessive contribution by providing a risky loan that might not be paid off. That would amount to free money. And there is no risk the bank will repossess the Senate seat.

   The watchdog organization is also concerned that she was slow to report the terms of her arrangement with U.S. bank. In some ways, that is more serious than simply getting run over by a decline in stock prices and turning to a bank that was happy to help a senator. A slow report would impinge on the opportunity for the people to judge for themselves the propriety of the loans.

   Most of all, Cantwell is a victim of hubris, an unwary arrogance in posing too proudly as a person superior to the common riffraff who run for public office, stuffing contributions into their pockets from all manner of devious devils. The gods will get you for that. And they got Maria Cantwell, compelling her to resort to the devices and the devils she once denounced.

   It's more a sad story than an egregiously corrupt one. But it does demonstrate that the difference between politicians who are for sale to special interests and those who aren't is mostly a matter of whether you still have a personal fortune to spend on your campaign. -- B.H.

LOAD-DATE: April 19, 2001