Frank Rich Whines About 'Sugar Daddies: The Old, White, Rich Men Who Are Buying This Election'

April 23rd, 2012 8:37 AM

Sunday must have been reverse racism day for past and current New York Times employees.

After David Brooks and Helene Cooper expressed concern about there possibly being two "white guys" on the Republican presidential ticket, former Times columnist turned New York magazine flame thrower Frank Rick wrote "Sugar Daddies: The Old, White, Rich Men Who Are Buying This Election":

Sugar daddies—whom I’ll define here as private donors or their privately held companies writing checks totaling $1 million or more (sometimes much more) in this election cycle—are largely a Republican phenomenon, most of them one degree of separation from Karl Rove and his unofficial partners in erecting a moneyed shadow GOP, David and Charles Koch. At last look, there were 25 known sugar daddies on the right (or more, if you want to count separately the spouses and children who pitch in).

So what's the real reason Rich is angry?

While Obama has his own super-PAC–“social welfare” nonprofit combo, the proceeds totaled only a pathetic $6.7 million last year. A paltry $100,000 contribution is all it takes for a Democratic donor to get priority access to the White House, according to the New York Times. George Soros is on the sidelines, and Obama so far has claimed only two sugar daddies of his own: Bill Maher and DreamWorks co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg.


If Obama was raising money like he did in 2008, you think Rich would be carping and whining about old, white, rich men buying this election?

He's just frustrated that at this point in the campaign the old, white, rich men are bankrolling the white guys his former colleagues Brooks and Cooper are so afraid of.

But since these New Yorkers are looking at things in reverse, why don't we do the same?

Imagine for a moment that some of America's wealthiest African-Americans - Oprah Winfrey, Sean "Diddy" Combs, Robert Johnson, Tiger Woods, Magic Johnson, Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter, Sheila Johnson, and Tyler Perry - created a Super PAC to get Obama reelected.

Would Rich be writing an article about rich black people buying this election?

Hardly.

And what would happen if any conservative commentator said or wrote such a thing?

It wouldn't be pretty, would it?

Maybe more importantly, why is it that liberals don't understand that racism won't end in this country until they stop using race to divide us?

I know, I know. That, too, is a rhetorical question for without the race card, the Democratic Party would lose every national election.

Folks like Brooks, Cooper, and Rich know this - and that's why they keep playing it.