Standard-Examiner Guest Op-ed: Old and New Mayors Have Both Accepted Tainted Contributions

If you were Mike Caldwell in this circumstance, what would you do with Gadi Leshem's grubby $3,000 campaign "donation?"

When we questioned Caldwell about accepting the $3,000, he said he did so because he didn't want to send the message that he was unwilling to work with Leshem. As a result, he is sending the message to everyone else in Ogden that you can't "work with" someone in this town unless money changes hands.

Dan Schroeder - Std-Ex Guest Editorial
Old and new mayors have both accepted tainted contributions
January 3, 2012

“There are two things that are important in politics,” Mark Hanna, the great Republican kingmaker of the late 19th century, once said. “The first thing is money, and I can’t remember what the second one is.”

David D. Kirkpatrick - New York Times
Does Corporate Money Lead to Political Corruption?
January 23, 2010

Chewy Standard-Examiner guest editorial up on the S-E website this afternoon, by Ogden Ethics Project Director Dan Schroeder, referring to the $10,000 campaign donation which Friend of Matt Godfrey (FOM) Gadi Leshem coughed up to the Matthew Godfrey mayoral campaign in 2007. Professor Schroeder then follows it up by reeling off the litany of inexplicable Godfrey "favors" subsequently heaped by the Godfrey Administyration upon Leshem in the election aftermath.

Professor Schroeder then, indirectly at least, hints at what we consider to be the pregnant question: "Should our newly-inagurated Mike Caldwell return the Gadi Leshem $3,000 donation which was contributed to Mike Caldwell's "campaign" on the day BEFORE (not after) the November 8, 2011 Ogden Municipal election?"

Check Out Dan's full Guest Commentary here:

• Old and new mayors have both accepted tainted contributions

So what about it, Gentle readers? Will the Caldwell Administration be permanently "tainted" by its ill-considered acceptance of this campaign donation bribe "gift?" Is Professor Schroeder the only one who finds it "remarkable that any politician would openly accept money from such a person (as Leshem)?" Does it remain "clear," as Dan Schroeder suggests, that even upon today's inauguration of Mike Caldwell as Ogden City's new Mayor, "... a mere change in administration won't lessen the need for ethical scrutiny?" Cutting to the chase... if you were Mike Caldwell in this circumstance, what would you do with Gadi's grubby $3,000 campaign "donation?"

So many questions... so few answers...