Mike's wife often said, "Mike likes to spend his Sunday mornings railing at the Archer Daniels Midland Company." For years Mike religiously watched This Week with David Brinkley. Whenever an ADM commercial came on, Mike would glower and recite the latest figure on how much campaign money ADM had given politicians who supported ethanol subsidies. Whenever the announcer said, "ADM--supermarket to the world," Mike muttered, "ADM--superbriber of the pols." What particularly galled Mike was that through his pension plan, he was an ADM stockholder. "I'm paying for this," he often said.
Mike was not alarmed by large campaign contributions. He understood...