It seems, like Randall Cunningham, Tom Delay lives beyond his means at the expense of his "donors," the likes of R.J.R Reynolds, the cigarette company.
WASHINGTON - As Tom DeLay became a king of campaign fundraising, he lived like one too. He visited cliff-top Caribbean resorts, golf courses designed by PGA champions and four-star restaurants — all courtesy of donors who bankrolled his political money empire.
Over the past six years, the former House majority leader and his associates have visited places of luxury most Americans have never seen, often getting there aboard corporate jets arranged by lobbyists and other special interests.
Public documents reviewed by The Associated Press tell the story: at least 48 visits to golf clubs and resorts with lush fairways; 100 flights aboard company planes; 200 stays at hotels, many world-class; and 500 meals at restaurants, some averaging nearly $200 for a dinner for two.
Instead of his personal expense, the meals and trips for DeLay and his associates were paid with donations collected by the campaign committees, political action committees and children's charity the Texas Republican created during his rise to the top of Congress.
Put them together and an opulent lifestyle emerges.
"A life to enjoy. The excuse to escape," Palmas del Mar, an oceanside Puerto Rican resort visited by DeLay, promised in a summer ad on its Web site as a golf ball bounced into a hole and an image of a sunset appeared.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051220/ap_on_go_co/delay_living_on_donorsI've been to Palmas Del Mar many times in connection with my business. (It's the only hotel near one of the plants where I used to do business.) It's very nice, very ritzy, all that third world inequity oozing over everything. (I always felt a little out of place amidst all that wealth.)