Chvala was charged with extortion. McCann said the game then evolved to where it became a wink and a nod. I wink, you nod. There's an implicit understanding about the transaction that's about to occur. There's no explicit demands, no explicit requests, there's no exchange that's on the record anywhere.
Then it got even more ingrained into the political culture. We're at the point now where you don't even need a wink and a nod. It's like the donors have been trained like laboratory rats, where, if they push a button, out pops a treat. It's just understood now that if you pay, you're rewarded. There's absolutely no need for anyone to offer a bribe or for elected officials to extort anybody. So how do you prove bribery?
We basically have what Russ Feingold called 'a legalized system of extortion and bribery." It's just become much more sophisticated. Those bribes have been gussied up and are now called campaign contributions. You don't have to break the law any more to play a fundamentally crooked game.
