The Biggest Loophole in American Politics

The scandal, as Mike Kinsley reminds us, is not what is illegal but what is legal. Case in point: the financing of those festivals of democracy known as presidential conventions. Corporate philanthropy to support these partisan love fests has grown more than 100-fold in 25 years. Such donations are legal and perhaps unobjectionable. But a Minnesota Independent investigation found less than 15 percent of the donors to this year’s GOP convention have disclosed the terms of their generosity.