Harry Reid makes a smart pick with regard to TARP oversight:
Senator Kaufman Selected as New TARP Cop
This caught my eye for a number of reasons. First, Senator Kaufman is a Duke grad and Duke professor currently filling Vice President Biden's old Senate seat. Second, Senator Kaufman seems like a great pick for "TARP Cop" because he's not running for reelection and never actually ran for election in the first place. Matt Taibbi explains this better than I can:
"...Kaufman has been sort of a test case proving that legislators can actually do their jobs the way they are supposed to when you remove the need to constantly raise money from their job description. Kaufman didn't need to raise money for a run, because he was appointed, and didn't need to raise money for re-election, because he's stepping down. I don't think it's a coincidence that he's been the realest guy on the Hill on the Wall Street stuff (along with a few others like Bernie Sanders and Sherrod Brown). So it's definitely good to see him get the COP job."
So is Kaufman an example of a politician who is able to--because of a very unique set of circumstances--operate completely outside of Arnold's model? Would we all be better off if more members of Congress were similarly unconcerned with reelection? Would term limits do the trick? I don't know, but I sure hope he's around next year so I can take one of his classes and ask him.
Evan
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