The Young Traficant

Worth Clicking: Blasts from the past wound Romney

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March 08, 2010

The Young Traficant

As Jim Traficant attempts a comeback congressional bid -- after serving more than seven years in prison on corruption charges -- David Grann notes in his new book, The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, that Traficant's history is actually "much more sordid and disturbing than many realize, in ways that extend well beyond his conviction in 2002."

"Traficant emerged out of perhaps the last truly mobbed-up county in America, a place in Ohio's Mahoning Valley where people were often murdered or disappeared, and where, until an F.B.I. sting in the nineteen-nineties, the Mafia controlled virtually every aspect of society. In 1982, even before Traficant began his congressional career, he was indicted for allegedly taking more than a hundred thousand dollars in bribes during his campaign for county sheriff."

In fact, Grann found a transcript of a tape recording in which Traficant was caught scheming with the Mob. He "acknowledged receiving bribes, and indicated that, in return, he would use the sheriff's office to protect the Mafia's rackets."

On the tape, Traficant assured his benefactors that he was a "loyal fucker," and if any of his sheriff's deputies betrayed them "they'll fuckin' come up swimming in [the] Mahoning River."

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Taegan D. Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites.

Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.

Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country, including the Washington Post, USA Today, Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer and Christian Science Monitor.

Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.

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March 08, 2010