[goldstategop]

Paul Hindelang, the guy who won the lawsuit, was a drug smuggler. If we had an honest to goodness press, imagine how the real media headlines would have read: "Honest Businessman Stunned By Court Verdict Gone Awry; Drug Smuggler Wins Millions." Note to Simon's campaign: Your firm's accounting partner goofed and failed to catch this guy's unsavory past and now you're left holding the bag. Incidentally, I agree with Simon the verdict was substantially flawed. The judge will either set it aside or it will be overturned on appeal, but quite frankly this just wasn't the kind of news Simon had been expecting. You sometimes meet shady characters in life and sometimes they come back to really hurt you. For the record, after playing the devil's advocate in much of this thread, I have to say Simon's personally not a crook or guilty of anything wrong. His company tried to protect itself from someone no one would want to do business with. In view of the political climate, the jury looked for someone to blame and alas, it didn't turn out to be the guy with the shady past.

[blackdog]

But, it can be expected that big business leaders on the campaign wagon bring with them some huge risks to the party. Think back on all the bosses and managers you had direct contact with that did behave unethically? I had quite a few. Liberals who are relatively unable to make decisions, just debate them to death and spread wealth to those who help them have a much more silent group that they interact with.

I worked directly with a CEO of a large office products company who would state in meetings all the time, that he is "going to do this or that, but I'll deny have ever having said it outside this room" If that guy ever ran for office, I would crucify him publicly, republican or democrat.