From: John Cuccia 

On Tue, 10 Jan 2006 20:48:41 -0500, "Steve Ewing"
 wrote:

>One thing I've read about the whole "K Street Project" is that where
>lobbyists used to hedge their bets by donating both ways, tipped toward
>the party in power, now "The Hammer" et al were enforcing
Republican-only
>donations, favors, and hirings.

David Broder's latest column is interesting, maintaining that Delay, since
he is a Texas politician, comes by his propensity for quid-pro-quo politics
honestly (so to speak).

The column further claims that Delay's model for his K Street Project was
Texas' corrupt good ole boy patronage system.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/09/AR2006010901431
.html
These men and many others steered government contracts and huge projects to
Texas, in turn reaping the campaign funds that not only financed their own
races but also allowed them to become donors to many colleagues. That is
how Johnson rose to leadership and also how he became personally wealthy.

As DeLay was to do later on, these Texans placed their trusted aides in key
corporate, trade association and lobbying jobs, and built a network of
Washington lawyers who moved back and forth from government service to
handling mergers and contracts on corporate retainers. DeLay's "K
Street Project" of moving Republican staffers into similar positions
in law firms and lobbies was no innovation; it was simply an adaptation of
the old plan.

And his fondness for earmarks in appropriations bills, as a way of securing
the loyalty and votes of his members, was, again, simply more of the model
that previous generations of Texas politicians had followed. The federal
treasury was their favorite tool for building grass-roots political
support.

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