So Damn Much Money
The Triumph of Lobbying and the Corrosion of American Government
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Narrated by:
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Erik Synnestvedt
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By:
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Robert G. Kaiser
About this listen
In this sometimes shocking and always riveting book, Robert G. Kaiser, who has covered Congress, the White House, and national politics for The Washington Post since 1963, explains how and why, over the last four decades, Washington became a dysfunctional capital.
At the heart of his story is money - money from special interests using campaign contributions and lobbyists to influence government decisions, and money demanded by congressional candidates to pay for their increasingly expensive campaigns, which can cost a staggering sum. Politicians' need for money and the willingness, even eagerness, of special interests and lobbyists to provide it explain much of what has gone wrong in Washington. They have created a mutually beneficial, mutually reinforcing relationship between special interests and elected representatives, and they have created a new class in Washington, wealthy lobbyists whose careers often begin in public service.
Kaiser shows us how behavior by public officials that was once considered corrupt or improper became commonplace, how special interests became the principal funders of elections, and how our biggest national problems - health care, global warming, and the looming crises of Medicare and Social Security, among others - have been ignored as a result.
Kaiser illuminates this progression through the saga of Gerald S. J. Cassidy who came to Washington in 1969 as an idealistic young lawyer determined to help feed the hungry. Over the course of 30 years, he built one of the city's largest and most profitable lobbying firms and accumulated a personal fortune. Cassidy's story provides an unprecedented view of lobbying.
This is a timely and tremendously important book that finally explains how Washington really works today and why it works so badly.
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Carl Bernstein's stunning portrait of Hillary Rodham Clinton shows us, as nothing else has, the true trajectory of her life and career, with its zigzag bursts of risks taken and safety sought. Marshaling all the skills and energy that propelled his history-making Pulitzer Prize reporting on Watergate, Bernstein gives us the most detailed, sophisticated, comprehensive, and revealing account of Hilary Rodham Clinton yet.
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in depth and well-written
- By Katherine on 07-20-07
By: Carl Bernstein
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Louis D. Brandeis
- A Life
- By: Melvin I Urofsky
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 35 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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The first full-scale biography in 25 years of one of the most important and distinguished justices to sit on the Supreme Court - an audiobook that reveals Louis D. Brandeis the reformer, lawyer, and jurist, and Brandeis the man, in all of his complexity, passion, and wit. As a lawyer in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, he pioneered how modern law is practiced.
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a Listen to Louis D. Brandeis
- By J on 07-11-10
By: Melvin I Urofsky
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The Fall of the House of FIFA
- The Multimillion-Dollar Corruption at the Heart of Global Soccer
- By: David Conn
- Narrated by: Matthew Waterson
- Length: 12 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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In 2015, FIFA - the multibillion dollar governing body of the world's most-loved sport - was brought down by allegations of industrial-scale bribes, kickbacks, money laundering, racketeering, and tax evasion. Beginning with early morning raids in Zurich and the indictment of 27 executives by the US Department of Justice, the rottenness at the core of FIFA seemed to extend throughout all of soccer, from the decision to send the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Russia and Qatar to lesser known cases of embezzlement from Trinidad to South Africa.
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quite good
- By kevin m on 12-14-17
By: David Conn
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Outsider in the White House
- Special Audio Edition
- By: Bernie Sanders, Huck Gutman, John Nichols - afterword
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett, Brian Sutherland
- Length: 10 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Bernie Sanders' campaign for the presidency of the United States has galvanized supporters all over the country, drawing attention to issues of economic, racial, and social justice and spotlighting one of the most interesting and unconventional candidates in decades.
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Behind the Scenes with Bernie--- WORTH it!
- By Susie on 02-23-16
By: Bernie Sanders, and others
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Deadly Spin
- An Insurance Company Insider Speaks Out on How Corporate PR Is Killing Health Care and Deceiving Americans
- By: Wendell Potter
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 9 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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In June 2009, Wendell Potter made national headlines with his scorching testimony before the Senate panel on health care reform. This former senior vice president of CIGNA explained how health insurers make promises they have no intention of keeping, how they flout regulations designed to protect consumers, and how they skew political debate with multibillion-dollar public relations campaigns designed to spread disinformation.
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Must Read
- By Randy on 01-11-11
By: Wendell Potter
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Coolidge: An American Enigma
- By: Robert Sobel
- Narrated by: Charles Bice
- Length: 16 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Sobel instead exposes the real Coolidge, whose legacy as the most Jeffersonian of all twentieth-century presidents still reverberates today. Sobel delves into the record to show how Coolidge cut taxes four times, had a budget surplus every year in office, and cut the national debt by a third in a period of unprecedented economic growth.
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A Book Exciting As It's Subject!!!
- By Ted on 08-28-12
By: Robert Sobel
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Family of Secrets
- The Bush Dynasty, the Powerful Forces That Put It in the White House, and What Their Influence Means for America
- By: Russ Baker
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman
- Length: 24 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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French philosopher Jean Paul Sartre said that "words are loaded pistols". In the hands of Russ Baker, they are hydrogen bombs. On each and every page of his masterpiece, Family of Secrets, he explodes the myths and lies that powerful forces have perpetrated on the American consciousness. He digs beneath the surface in a form of journalistic archeology to reveal the hidden history of one of America's most powerful families, leaving no stone unturned.
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Still Relevant, Impossible to Put Down
- By Emilio Largo on 12-14-12
By: Russ Baker
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Collision 2012
- Obama vs. Romney and the Future of Elections in America
- By: Dan Balz
- Narrated by: Jeffrey Kafer
- Length: 15 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Four years ago, a bright young presidential candidate named Barack Obama campaigned on a theme of hope and change, and made history. Today, he finds himself in another bitter, divisive presidential race but without the buzzwords. Instead, an embattled president struggles with a dysfunctionally divided Congress, a controversial healthcare bill, a decade-long war, and a stagnant economy.
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Fascinating. Couldn't stop listening.
- By Gregory E Benoit on 07-24-16
By: Dan Balz
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The New Deal
- A Modern History
- By: Michael Hiltzik
- Narrated by: Traber Burns
- Length: 19 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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As America struggles with an economic debacle akin to the Great Depression, nothing could be timelier than an authoritative account of the New Deal, masterfully written by Michael Hiltzik, author of the acclaimed history of the Hoover Dam, Colossus.
In this richly peopled, vividly rendered narrative, Hiltzik describes how the urgent short-term relief measures of Franklin Roosevelt’s Hundred Days evolved into a transformative concept of the federal role in American life.
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Another Excellent New Deal History
- By R.S. on 12-19-11
By: Michael Hiltzik
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All Things Possible
- Setbacks and Success in Politics and Life
- By: Andrew M. Cuomo
- Narrated by: Michael Kramer
- Length: 14 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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In this full and frank memoir - a personal story of duty, family, justice, politics and resilience - New York Governor Andrew Cuomo reflects on his rise, fall, and rise in politics, and recounts his defining personal and political moments and tough but necessary lessons he has learned along the way.
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I Love This Book AND the Guvnor (Governor, I Know)
- By Igi M. on 09-02-20
By: Andrew M. Cuomo
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The Road to Camelot
- Inside JFK's Five-Year Campaign
- By: Thomas Oliphant, Curtis Wilkie
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
- Length: 14 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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A behind-the-scenes, revelatory account of John F. Kennedy's wily campaign for the White House, beginning with his bold failed attempt to win the vice presidential nomination in 1956. A young and undistinguished junior plots his way to the presidency and changes the way we nominate and elect presidents. John F. Kennedy and his young warriors invented modern presidential politics.
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Absolutely excellent
- By T-Ward on 08-22-20
By: Thomas Oliphant, and others
What listeners say about So Damn Much Money
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Amazon Customer
- 06-01-22
Great Book on History of Lobbying in American Politics
I thought this was one of the better books I’ve read on the role of money in American politics. The author was effective in providing contextual evidence as to how lobbying first entered the political arena before detailing how has evolved to become interwoven into the fabric of our political system.
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- Daniel
- 05-15-13
Great piece of muckraking
Would you listen to So Damn Much Money again? Why?
Excellent (non-fiction) book about how American politicians have become extremely focused on raising money for their campaigns, rather than on doing what is best for the American people. Great expose, with lots of examples of legal corruption in our current system of government. The focus is on how the system has become broken rather than blaming individuals. Only limitation of the book is that the story is somewhat unevenly told, with an occasional dull patch in the beginning or part that is out of sequence of a story that otherwise follows chronological order. Book gets better and better as you listen further into it. Second half is fantastic. Overall, would highly recommend.
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Overall
- Fernando
- 06-06-16
Essential knowledge
This book is worth every minute if you care to know who runs this country and how it is done. It was published 7 years ago, but today's Washington is the same as then or worse.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Logan Kedzie
- 10-30-10
An American horror story with flaws in the telling
There's bound to be reviewers who claim that the author's picking on Republicans, but disregard that - it's more that Republicans bear the brunt of an accident of history. The book chronicles the change in the culture of government, and specifically as it has to do not with money per se, but with spending, with the arms race that develops from pols realizing that spending on races wins, as well as the culture of lobbyists who (even with honorable intentions at times) nurtured the culture where this was possible. I'm a little hesitant to draw the picture as broadly as the author does, where money is the sole cause and the sole sustaining reason, but it's a very, very scary picture. The book does have some flaws, though. The framing story - the narrative of one important lobbyist - isn't as interesting as the author thinks it is, and the book has a tendency to get stuck in some dry, unimportant tangent for what seems like hours. The opening and closing music is also a bit excessively melodramatic. But when it's good, it's on fire.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Finlay
- 03-23-13
Answers Many Questions
Any additional comments?
So Damn Much Money answers the questions I had about where the American political system went astray.
I found this audiobook in pursuit of understanding how American politics managed to degenerate into a state in which the US government seems incapable of dealing with the big issues facing the US and the world. Kaiser tells this story from the point of view of one of the most successful Washington lobbyists of the last 30 years.
The story is told chronologically, so you feel how one thing leads to another and before you know it, the US political system has been paralyzed by money, greed and special interest manoeuvring. Kaiser makes it easy to see how it happened, and how it seems unlikely to fix itself any time soon. A sober story, but one worth the listen.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Amber Anderton
- 09-19-18
This is an eye opening book about the corruption
I wish ever American would give this a listen. It would enrage any American to know who really pulls the political marionette stings.
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1 person found this helpful