Our challenge today is to discuss politicians who get in trouble for extravagant spending, and to do it without mentioning the Republican National Committee's expense-account party at the bondage club. When times are tough, people always try to depict the opposition party as dining on triple helpings of truffles while the rest of the country has Hamburger Helper. You may remember that during the presidential campaign, there was a rumor that Michelle Obama had checked into the Waldorf-Astoria in New York, and sent down to room service for 'lobster hors d'oeuvres, two whole steamed lobsters, Iranian caviar and champagne,' as the New York Post reported before retracting the entire story. This sort of thing goes way back. After the Panic of 1837, President Martin Van Buren was ruined by gossip about banquets where he and his guests ate with golden spoons. A congressman from Pennsylvania claimed Van Buren was landscaping the White House lawn 'to resemble AN AMAZON'S BOSOM with a miniature knoll or hillock at its apex to denote the nipple.' Okay, this does bring us back to the bondage nightclub. You have undoubtedly heard that the RNC fired a staffer this week when word leaked out that she had taken a dozen donors to a Hollywood club called Voyeur. The partygoers were members of the Young Eagles, contributors who are youthful by the standards of people who give large sums of money to the Republican party -- that is, under the age of 46. Voyeur is modeled after a steamy sex scene in 'Eyes Wide Shut,' a movie made in 1999, when the idea of Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman co-starring in a surreal film charged with sexual tension sounded like a good plan. The club's entertainment features topless dancers, simulated sex and a lot of women tying each other up. When the story got out, the committee staffer who accompanied the group and authorized the expenditure was dismissed. She had, an RNC spokesman explained, 'been previously counseled on this very subject.' Graduating college seniors, let that be a warning. If your first boss tells you to stop putting dinners at bondage clubs on the company expense account, take it to heart. Really. He probably means it. Beyond that important life lesson, this story doesn't seem worth getting upset about unless you happen to be a donor to the RNC. Others might actually prefer to see the money go to topless dancers rather than Michele Bachmann. Most of the current gossip about conspicuous consumption involves candidates in this year's big elections, spread by opponents who want to define a fiscal conservative as a person who flies coach. In California, a Democratic ad targeting Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman shows a cartoon Whitman boasting that while she was a business executive 'I kept my personal jet costs down to a frugal $3 million.' I am not sure this works. Most right-thinking Americans know, deep down, that if they were given the choice between their normal airport experience or private jet, they would go for their own personal Cessna every time. Spending $1,000 for a haircut, on the other hand, just seems like an obscene waste. And hiring your latest squeeze to follow you around making videos, the way John Edwards did, is not something most of us have ever really daydreamed about. Right now the epicenter of the fights over who's the true tightwad is Florida, where Gov. Charlie Crist is battling Marco Rubio, a state representative and Tea Party darling, in a race for the Republican Senate nomination. The highlight so far has been Crist's attempt to claim that Rubio used his Republican credit card to pay for a back wax. I am very sorry to say this doesn't actually seem to have occurred. Rubio charged that Crist had been staying in $2,000 luxury hotel rooms 'where he racks up $1,300 in minibar charges.' The minibar thing also seems to be a red herring, although you have to love the vision of the rather ascetic-looking governor buried in a mountain of empty tiny liquor bottles and candy wrappers. And the hotel was paid for by Florida businessmen while Crist was with them on a 12-day trade mission to cities like St. Petersburg and Madrid. However, taxpayers did have to pay for a large supporting cast of state employees who went along, too, including a photographer and nine bodyguards. This does seem excessive by any standards. Most of us would travel on nothing but private jets if we could afford it, but I do not know anyone who fantasizes about going to Madrid with a photographer and a security detail big enough to field a baseball team. Plus, you have to be careful about those trade missions. Remember what happened to the governor of South Carolina? 