Hurry on down to aisle 4. Don't miss this last chance to buy your own Congressman or Senator. It's a "going out of business" clearance sale. There won't be another sale like this after November 2002 so stock up now. Don't miss out on this important corporate opportunity. Get your own Congressman before it is too late.

One of the prices paid for passage of the Campaign Finance Reform Bill in the House of Representatives was to delay its effective date to permit one more trip to the trough for the 2002 Congressional elections. Meanwhile both political parties are ramping up their pursuit of soft money now so that they won't be left behind in November. Assuming the measure survives conference committee, Speaker Hastert's last chance to save the Republican Party as we know it, you can look for fire-sale promotions to put oodles of soft money contributions in the bank before they become illegal. You can see the incumbent's salivating at the prospect of yet one more election cycle of business as usual.

Our local Congressman, Republican Timothy Johnson of Illinois, voted for the bill after agonizing over the decision to break party ranks. Of course Timmy doesn't really need soft money. He doesn't have an opponent in his safe salamander shaped district that winds down the Illinois-Indiana border. Illinois lost a seat in the 2000 census and the incumbents brokered a deal that protected as many incumbents as possible. Timmy, the freshest of the 2000 Republican freshmen owed his safe seat to the Speaker's deal. The new map put Democrat David Pearce in the same grotesquely shaped district weighted 60-40 to the Republican side of the scale. Since being elected Congressman Tim has fallen on hard times. He has had to sell the $1.5 million dollar home he built on a State Legislator's $40K salary and has to make do with his Hawaiian condo. Meanwhile he is busy in the district raising funds for his contest against a blank ballot. It could be that he remembers what happened to John Ashcroft.

Mr. Ming says, "If you see a politician or a Baptist preacher coming, hide your wallet!