It may be unrealistic to have expected Hill ary Clinton’s campaign - or those of many other Democratic politicians, including Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown - to have done a thorough background check on Norman Hsu, the big-time donor and fund-raiser who turns out to have been wanted by California authorities in connection with a 1992 fraud scheme.

Clinton’s presidential campaign has received money from more than 500,000 donors, and Hsu has become so ubiquitous at Democratic money-raising events over the past few years that officials in the Clinton cash machine probably assumed that he must have been vetted by someone at some point. Certainly, the state of California could not have been pursuing Hsu with much intensity, given the fact that he’s been hiding in plain sight - openly giving to many big-name Democrats in the state - at least until he left his lawyers in the lurch by failing to show up at a recent bail hearing.

But the still unfolding story about Hsu and his work on Clinton’s behalf - he was listed as a co-host of numerous fund-raising events and qualified as a "Hillraiser" by drumming up at least $100,000 for her campaign - serves as a stark reminder of why so many Democrats remain privately wary about their party’s frontrunner. The "high negatives" that political pros cite when they discuss Clinton’s prospects have many sources, everything from discomfort with her voice or gender to honest policy disagreements. But at root, much of the trepidation about Clinton is tied to her husband’s eight polarizing years as president.

And even many Democrats who admired Bill Clinton’s vision and political acumen were appalled by the hyper-aggressive way in which he raised money, especially during the 1996 campaign. Eager to avoid the tight spending limits imposed on candidates who take federal campaign dollars, the president and his re-election team hit on a loophole: They raised vast quantities of barely regulated "soft money" that could be channeled to state parties to run television spots boosting Clinton and attacking the GOP. The now-infamous White House coffees and sleepovers, Al Gore’s visit to a Buddhist temple and his "no controlling legal authority" statement, all flowed from that strategy.

One of the first stories to examine Hsu’s connection to Hillary Clinton appeared last month in the Wall Street Journal. It noted that six members of the Paw family in Daly City, Calif., had given $45,000 to Clinton and $155,000 to various other Democrats since 2005. Their donations tracked Hsu’s almost exactly. The head of the household delivers mail; his wife is a homemaker. Hsu once listed the house as his address, too. Federal agents have reportedly begun to investigate whether Hsu funded the Paws’ donations, which would be illegal.

All that sounds remarkably - or perhaps painfully, if you’re a Democrat - like the story of Arief and Soraya Wiriadinata. Indonesian immigrant landscapers from Virginia, they gave $450,000 in soft money during the 1996 cycle. On a videotape from a White House coffee, Mr. Wiriadinata is heard telling a smiling president, "James Riady sent me." Riady, a banker with long ties to Clinton and other politicians, eventually pleaded guilty to campaign law violations and paid an $8.6 million fine.

It’s possible that Hsu was involved in no such wrongdoing and that his years on the lam represented an honest misunderstanding of his plea deal. But Democrats who have learned the hard way to take a deep breath whenever the Clintons are raising money have to wonder if this is déjà vu all over again.

Source:  Cleveland.com