Should a Billionaire Be Your Next Senator?

The real estate billionaire Jeff Greene, known as the "meltdown mogul," has entered Florida's Senate race as a Democrat after Governor Charlie Crist switched to run as an independent this week. More diversity for any elected seat is a great idea, you may be thinking. But perhaps you're assuming that diversity means something different than what Jeff Greene has in mind.

In 2008, Forbes profiled the newly-rich Greene, interviewing him on his yacht while it was docked in the Hamptons and explaining how the real estate investor frequently bounces between his five homes. The story, with the stomach-turning title of "The Reluctant Billionaire," explores how Greene became mega rich by betting on the failing housing market — that is, betting that mortgages would default and the housing bubble would burst. Several opportunistic moves later, investing his own reserves of several million against the common knowledge of Wall Street, Greene made a reported $800 million on the housing crash.

Here's the thing: it seems disingenuous at best when Greene claims that because he isn't a career politician, he's the man for the job. I get that he doesn't have experience as a politician — though he has conveniently omitted that he ran for Congress as a Republican in the 1980s — but this is also someone who actively profited from everyone else's misery over the past few years. The guy doesn't even try to hide it! It's highlighted as his biggest accomplishment! Anticipating backlash, he already released a statement that says there's a "big difference between what I did and what Wall Street did." Um, okay. He's also promising to refuse campaign contributions, but do we really care when he's one of the candidates who can actually afford to do so?

This leads me to ask: would you rather have a super wealthy guy pretending to be an everyman or a seasoned politician who at least knows the ropes? I'm in favor of an alternative to both, though one has yet to emerge. We've already got enough rich guys in Washington making decisions on behalf of their impoverished constituents, and frankly, that combination doesn't seem to be getting us anywhere. There are hundreds of thousands of people in our country right now living without even the essentials. Where's the news coverage for them? Where is their representation? And where is the outrage?

Photo credit: Joe Shlabotnik