height="110"> Whenever Marine One lifts off from the south lawn of the White House, identical decoy helicopters go with it, quickly trading places in a complex, evasive maneuver known as the presidential shell game.

The shifting formation is aimed at confusing potential attackers, a concern that reached a fever pitch after 9/11. It could just as easily apply to the corporations jockeying to replace the aging Marine One fleet — a boondoggle that’s wasted billions and fattened politicians’ war chests for years, as a short list of well-connected players maneuver to the build a custom rotary aircraft deemed safe enough to fly the president through almost any crisis, even a nuclear blast.

The Marine One upgrade has played out from the start as classic pork-barrel politics. Portrayed as urgent, it has been bedeviled by delays and cost overruns, with contractors playing musical chairs for a seat at the table all the while.

“The president’s helicopter should be based on national security and sensible budgeting. Instead, it is being decided on who’s funding which politicians to stay in power, and about jobs in one district versus jobs in another,” said Daniel Newman, executive director of MAPLight.org, nonpartisan money-tracking organization. “Basically, we have a broken system where paying for politicians to be elected and stay in office is what it takes to win favorable contracts.”

Net neutrality, intellectual property, wireless spectrum, export laws and pollution regulations might rise to the top of any list of key tech-lobbying issues. Less scrutinized are the daily battles for pork that grease the wheels of government spending everywhere, and prove the adage that politics is the art of legally transferring wealth from one group of interests to another.

In this, the first in an occasional series examining tech influence in politics using MAPLight’s nonpartisan political-finance–analysis tools, the trail leads to a mind boggling, 10-year campaign in which three key defense contractors have funneled more than $18 million to the pockets of federal lawmakers, to win various military contracts, including one for what can best be described as the government equivalent of the Bat-copter.

Last year, under pressure from politicians citing spiraling expenses, the Pentagon backed out of a $6.5 billion deal with Lockheed Martin and AgustaWestland to provide 28 new, state-of-the-art birds. President Barack Obama described the procurement process as gone amok,” with the choppers projected to reach $400 million each, almost double the original price.

Now a detailed look at campaign finance records connected to the Marine One contracts, undertaken for the first time by Wired.com and MAPLight.org, shows a flurry of corporate contributions from Lockheed rivals to lawmakers involved in the decision-making immediately before and after the deal was grounded. And with a government call for new proposals for a revised contract expected next year, pay-to-play contributions to win the coveted deal continue to flow unabated, records show.

MAPLight is a 5-year-old nonprofit based in Berkeley, California. Thanks to MAPLight’s tools, which are fueled by data from the Center for Responsive Politics of Washington, D.C., we can not only track the amount of money spent, but see the timing of payments related to legislative work, such as votes, or pressure from politicians to kill an existing contract and hand it to a friend.

In addition to keeping tabs on tech-related pork and lobbying, we are unveiling today a new campaign-finance–tracking widget, in conjunction with MAPLight and based on CRP data, to help shine a general spotlight on politicians and their contributors. (See related story).

Hail to the Chief

The jockeying for the Marine One contract began in earnest a decade ago after the 2001 terror attacks. Capt. Cate Mueller, a spokeswoman for the Navy, which is supervising the stalled project, said a new Marine One fleet was “critical” to the nation’s security. Some choppers in the current fleet are more than three decades old.

Specifications for the new Marine One chopper are classified. But public documents show the new craft must at minimum carry a sort of miniature Oval Office, with two independent communications systems, including encrypted video conferencing; have at least two engines, and be capable of flying with a failed engine; and be equipped with a missile-defense system and nuclear-fallout reflector capabilities. Together, these enhancements will make it the most advanced flying machine of its type in the world, should it ever arrive.

Sikorsky Aircraft was believed to be the leading contender, having already produced the current presidential fleet, consisting of 11 Sikorsky VH-3D Sea Kings and eight Sikorsky VH-60N Black Hawks.

But in 2005, it lost out to Lockheed, of Bethesda, Maryland, and AgustaWestland, a European company that was building the craft along with Lockheed and dozens of subcontractors. The Lockheed Martin and AgustaWestland three-engine craft, the EH101, beat out the two-engine design of Sikorsky’s  VH-92, an offshoot of its H92 SuperHawk.

At the time, Navy acquisition chief John Young said Lockheed Martin and AgustaWestland prevailed because they were deemed more likely “to meet government requirements on schedule, with lesser risk, and at lower cost.”

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Authors: David Kravets

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