Andrew Gideon wrote:
Larry Dighera wrote:

But a scrupled representative would not entertain advocacy that
swindles the rest of his constituency.

That's the issue. And it's apparently one that's tough for some politicians
to grasp. We even see it in our small town where people that know the
mayor or council members (which means people that contribute) receive a
level of advocacy beyond everyone else.

The smaller the puddle, the muddier the water.

I live in Boston where we've had the mother of all boondoggles going
for over a decade aka the Big Dig. A good friend of mine works for one
of the state agencies that investigates contract fraud and he said that
the worst scams he saw were not being done by Modern Continental or
Bechtel, but in the set-aside programs designed to give small
contractors a piece of the action.

Having lived both here and in New York it's been my subjective
experience that there's more corruption here, largely I think because
it's smaller. The city of Boston itself is fairly small and if you know
50 people, chances are one of them knows somebody in fill-in-the-blank
office. Building permits, parking tickets, whatever. NYC by contrast is
so large (~15x) that subversion through familiarity is much more
difficult.

-cwk.