Log in or Sign up

Only Republicans sell out

Discussion in 'Free Speech Alley' started by dallastigers, Jan 31, 2004.

Page 1 of 2

dallastigers Founding Member

Joined:

Sep 2, 2002

Messages:

1,361

Likes Received:

1

Yea Right

Kerry Leads in Lobby Money
Anti-Special-Interest Campaign Contrasts With Funding

By Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 31, 2004; Page A01

Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), who has made a fight against corporate special interests a centerpiece of his front-running campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, has raised more money from paid lobbyists than any other senator over the past 15 years, federal records show.

Kerry, a 19-year veteran of the Senate who fought and won four expensive political campaigns, has received nearly $640,000 from lobbyists, many representing telecommunications and financial companies with business before his committee, according to Federal Election Commission data compiled by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

For his presidential race, Kerry has raised more than $225,000 from lobbyists, better than twice as much as his nearest Democratic rival. Like President Bush, Kerry has also turned to a number of corporate officials and lobbyists to "bundle" contributions from smaller donors, often in sums of $50,000 or more, records provided by his campaign show.

"Senator Kerry has taken individual contributions from lobbyists, but that has not stopped him from fighting against special interests on behalf of average Americans," said Kerry spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter. "If anyone thinks a contribution can buy Kerry's vote, then they are wasting their money."

Kerry said on Jan. 19 that he would "happily release any lobbyist meeting I've ever had," but he has yet to do so. Cutter said Kerry will not release records until he compiles data on every meeting over the past 19 years, which will be a "pretty lengthy process." Kerry will not release it "piecemeal," she said.

Most members of Congress and presidential candidates turn to corporations and their Washington-based lobbyists for political assistance, most often with fundraising. All the presidential candidates take money from special interests, including Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.), who like Kerry has targeted corporations and lobbyists in his stump speeches. And Bush has far outpaced them all.

Because Kerry has made his fight against "Washington special interests" a new theme of his presidential campaign, campaign rivals and campaign finance watchdogs have accused him of hypocrisy.

Retired Army Gen. Wesley K. Clark, a newcomer to national politics, is running a television ad that hits Kerry and others for ties to special interests. "Special interest deals. Promises unkept. Do we really need another Washington politician?" the narrator says in the ad. "A politician won't change the way Washington works."

"John Kerry has been withdrawing money from the special interest bank for his entire career and now -- because it's the popular thing to do -- he wants us to believe that he's going to close the account and go after the people that have funded his political career," said Jay Carson, a spokesman for former Vermont governor Howard Dean.

"The note of reality is he has been brought to you by special interests," said Charles Lewis of the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity, a watchdog group that has closely studied the senator's relationship with special interests. "It's very hard [for Kerry] to utter this rhetoric without some hollowness to it."

"I think it's harder for someone like Kerry to take on" Bush over special interests "because he's taken money . . . from a lot of the same" corporate sectors, added Larry Noble, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, which monitors money in politics. Dean, who has raised more money than Kerry in this campaign, has taken considerably less from lobbyists.

Cutter said her boss would have no problem fighting Bush on the issue because "Kerry has spent his career fighting against special interests, while Bush has never met a special interest he doesn't like. While Kerry was fighting to keep oil companies from drilling in ANWR [the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge], the White House was inviting them in to tea."

Kerry or any other longtime politician inevitably faces this charge when running for president as a self-styled reformer. Unless the candidate is someone like Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who has made a name for himself by fighting for reform and against corporate giveaways, or a self-financed independent, like Ross Perot in the 1990s, it is very hard to turn the theme into an effective campaign message, Noble said. "It's the classic situation: Most politicians get money from what they are calling special interests because they are the ones who give."

Kerry, who did not begin his campaign with a heavy emphasis on fighting lobbyists, appears to have usurped the special interest message from Edwards and Dean over the past few months. Now, Kerry's standard campaign refrain includes this warning to the "special interests" and their lobbyists: "We're coming, you're going and don't let the door hit you on the way out."

Kerry says he would extend the current one-year lobbying ban on government officials to five years and issue an executive order requiring a public record of all meetings between government employees and lobbyists. Since the early days of the Bush administration, Democrats, including Kerry, have been pressuring Vice President Cheney to disclose his contacts with energy officials who influenced the White House energy policy, making this a political issue for 2004.

Under current law, lobbyists must register with the federal government, list their clients and in very general terms describe the issues they are working on and which branch of government they are seeking to influence. White House and congressional officials are not required to disclose their meetings.

Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), co-author of the newest campaign finance law, said Kerry was not one of the half-dozen members who put together the reform package but "he's always been one of our most consistent and strongest supporters." Kerry unilaterally swore off political action committee funds from corporations during his four Senate runs, a popular position for reform advocates before large, unregulated of "soft money" from corporations, unions and rich people started dominating politics in the 1990s. "It's great he didn't take PAC money, but let's not go crazy here," said Lewis.

The reason: As Kerry was pushing reforms and boasting of his PAC-free campaigns, he was aggressively soliciting money from individuals working for companies and ringing up much bigger checks from corporations in the form of soft money. Kerry has not been involved in any of the major fundraising scandals of the past three decades -- although he was one of several politicians who took money from Taiwanese American businessman Johnny Chung, who was convicted of contributing illegally to Bill Clinton and many others.

The Hill, a Washington-based publication covering Capitol Hill, this month reported that Kerry in 1999 lobbied the Coast Guard on a rule-making process that benefited a foreign company represented by Cassidy & Associates. Soon after, employees of Cassidy & Associates sent Kerry $7,250 in bundled contributions. Jim Ruggieri, the Coast Guard official who handled the matter, told the paper it was highly unusual for a senator to intervene on such a matter.

A review of FEC and other data by The Washington Post found that Kerry has raked in millions from U.S. corporations, especially financial companies such as Citigroup and telecom firms, including Rubert Murdoch's News Corp., which also flew one of his Senate staffers to California for a meeting.

In the presidential race, Kerry has accepted contributions from the same "special interests" he accuses Bush of being too cozy with: HMOs, drug companies and energy firms. He has raised nearly $27,000 from oil and gas companies, tops of the remaining Democratic candidates; $34,000 from health maintenance organizations, second to Dean; and $18,500 from pharmaceutical companies, third behind Dean and Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.). Even after subtracting money Kerry has raised for his presidential campaign, he ranks in the top four Senate beneficiaries of lobbyist cash, the CRP found.

One of Kerry's biggest -- and perhaps most controversial -- donors has been the Boston-based law firm Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo. The group, which lobbies on behalf of the telecommunications industry -- and employs the senator's brother, Cameron -- is his single largest contributor over the course of his Senate career. David Leiter, Kerry's former chief of staff, is vice president of a lobbying company affiliated with the Boston-based law firm.

The Center for Public Integrity criticized the senator's relationship with the firm in a little-publicized report released last year, accusing him of pushing the agenda of those helping to pay his bills.

"Kerry, who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, has sponsored or co-sponsored a number of bills favorable to the industry and has written letters to government agencies on behalf of the clientele of his largest donor," the report said. The Boston law firm's client include the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association (CTIA), an umbrella group for telecommunications companies.

Since 1999, Kerry has sponsored at least two bills and co-sponsored half a dozen that were sought by the CTIA, including industry-backed plans for winning lucrative auctions of spectrum, or airwaves. Thomas Wheeler, the former chief executive of the CTIA, and Christopher Putala, a lobbyist for the group, are both among Kerry's biggest presidential fundraisers.

Cutter, Kerry's spokeswoman, provided a list of several industry-backed bills Kerry opposed. "Kerry has never been swayed by any donation on a vote. He consistently votes to protect consumers and workers," she said.

Political researcher Brian Faler contributed to this report.
Click to expand...

Washington Post

dallastigers, Jan 31, 2004

#1
JD Founding Member

Joined:

Dec 8, 2002

Messages:

509

Likes Received:

1

For a second there I thought you were actually comparing Kerry to the RNC or George Bush.
Got those numbers handy?

JD, Jan 31, 2004

#2
dallastigers Founding Member

Joined:

Sep 2, 2002

Messages:

1,361

Likes Received:

1

Originally posted by JD
For a second there I thought you were actually comparing Kerry to the RNC or George Bush.
Got those numbers handy?
Click to expand...

Does it really matter? So Kerry can take all the special interest money he wants as long as it is less than Bush.

But, you are right I should not compare Kerry to Bush or the RNC as he appears to have been in a league all by himself as a Senator the last 15 years. One can only imagine the amounts if he becomes President.

"Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), who has made a fight against corporate special interests a centerpiece of his front-running campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, has raised more money from paid lobbyists than any other senator over the past 15 years, federal records show. "

It is so funny when people who complain about Bush and special interests ask for comparison numbers when it gets pointed out that all politicians cater to someone. I guess it is only bad when you do not agree with the special interests.

I can already hear the catering to the Taliban wing of the Republican party starting up.

dallastigers, Jan 31, 2004

#3
centextiger Freshman

Joined:

Nov 18, 2003

Messages:

14

Likes Received:

0

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040204/ap_on_el_pr/kerry_big_dig_1

centextiger, Feb 4, 2004

#4
centextiger Freshman

Joined:

Nov 18, 2003

Messages:

14

Likes Received:

0

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4121890/

centextiger, Feb 4, 2004

#5
JD Founding Member

Joined:

Dec 8, 2002

Messages:

509

Likes Received:

1

Originally posted by dallastigers
Does it really matter? So Kerry can take all the special interest money he wants as long as it is less than Bush.

But, you are right I should not compare Kerry to Bush or the RNC as he appears to have been in a league all by himself as a Senator the last 15 years. One can only imagine the amounts if he becomes President.

"Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), who has made a fight against corporate special interests a centerpiece of his front-running campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, has raised more money from paid lobbyists than any other senator over the past 15 years, federal records show. "

It is so funny when people who complain about Bush and special interests ask for comparison numbers when it gets pointed out that all politicians cater to someone. I guess it is only bad when you do not agree with the special interests.

I can already hear the catering to the Taliban wing of the Republican party starting up.
Click to expand...

Of course it matters.

When a party continually,without interruption, loots the taxpayers to pay campaign contributors (or organizations in which they have a pecuiniary interest) like the republican party does for Halliburton, Bechtel (completely incapable of earning a straight nickle) and scores of others with handouts, subsidies, no bid, no audit, no-risk contracts, once again, damn straight it matters.

JD, Feb 4, 2004

#6
dallastigers Founding Member

Joined:

Sep 2, 2002

Messages:

1,361

Likes Received:

1

By HOWIE CARR

February 5, 2004 -- BOSTON

ONE of the surest ways to get the phones ringing on any Massachusetts talk-radio show is to ask people to call in and tell their John Kerry stories. The phone lines are soon filled, and most of the stories have a common theme: our junior senator pulling rank on one of his constituents, breaking in line, demanding to pay less (or nothing) or ducking out before the bill arrives.

The tales often have one other common thread. Most end with Sen. Kerry inquiring of the lesser mortal: "Do you know who I am?"

And now he's running for president as a populist. His first wife came from a Philadelphia Main Line family worth $300 million. His second wife is a pickle-and-ketchup heiress.

Kerry lives in a mansion on Beacon Hill on which he has borrowed $6 million to finance his campaign. A fire hydrant that prevented him and his wife from parking their SUV in front of their tony digs was removed by the city of Boston at his behest.

The Kerrys ski at a spa the widow Heinz owns in Aspen, and they summer on Nantucket in a sprawling seaside "cottage" on Hurlbert Avenue, which is so well-appointed that at a recent fund-raiser, they imported porta-toilets onto the front lawn so the donors wouldn't use the inside bathrooms. (They later claimed the decision was made on septic, not social, considerations).

It's a wonderful life these days for John Kerry. He sails Nantucket Sound in "the Scaramouche," a 42-foot Hinckley powerboat. Martha Stewart has a similar boat; the no-frills model reportedly starts at $695,000. Sen. Kerry bought it new, for cash.

Every Tuesday night, the local politicians here that Kerry elbowed out of his way on his march to the top watch, fascinated, as he claims victory in more primaries and denounces the special interests, the "millionaires" and "the overprivileged."

"His initials are JFK," longtime state Senate President William M. Bulger used to muse on St. Patrick's Day, "Just for Kerry. He's only Irish every sixth year." And now it turns out that he's not Irish at all.

But in the parochial world of Bay State politics, he was never really seen as Irish, even when he was claiming to be (although now, of course, he says that any references to his alleged Hibernian heritage were mistakenly put into the Congressional Record by an aide who apparently didn't know that on his paternal side he is, in fact, part-Jewish).

Kerry is, in fact, a Brahmin - his mother was a Forbes, from one of Massachusetts' oldest WASP families. The ancestor who wed Ralph Waldo Emerson's daughter was marrying down.

At the risk of engaging in ethnic stereotyping, Yankees have a reputation for, shall we say, frugality. And Kerry tosses around quarters like they were manhole covers. In 1993, for instance, living on a senator's salary of about $100,000, he managed to give a total of $135 to charity.

Yet that same year, he was somehow able to scrape together $8,600 for a brand-new, imported Italian motorcycle, a Ducati Paso 907 IE. He kept it for years, until he decided to run for president, at which time he traded it in for a Harley-Davidson like the one he rode onto "The Tonight Show" set a couple of months ago as Jay Leno applauded his fellow Bay Stater.

Of course, in 1993 he was between his first and second heiresses - a time he now calls "the wandering years," although an equally apt description might be "the freeloading years."

For some of the time, he was, for all practical purposes, homeless. His friends allowed him into a real-estate deal in which he flipped a condo for quick resale, netting a $21,000 profit on a cash investment of exactly nothing. For months he rode around in a new car supplied by a shady local Buick dealer. When the dealer's ties to a congressman who was later indicted for racketeering were exposed, Kerry quickly explained that the non-payment was a mere oversight, and wrote out a check.

In the Senate, his record of his constituent services has been lackluster, and most of his colleagues, despite their public support, are hard-pressed to list an accomplishment. Just last fall, a Boston TV reporter ambushed three congressmen with the question, name something John Kerry has accomplished in Congress. After a few nervous giggles, two could think of nothing, and a third mentioned a baseball field, and then misidentified Kerry as "Sen. Kennedy."

Many of his constituents see him in person only when he is cutting them in line - at an airport, a clam shack or the Registry of Motor Vehicles. One talk-show caller a few weeks back recalled standing behind a police barricade in 2002 as the Rolling Stones played the Orpheum Theater, a short limousine ride from Kerry's Louisburg Square mansion.

The caller, Jay, said he began heckling Kerry and his wife as they attempted to enter the theater. Finally, he said, the senator turned to him and asked him the eternal question.

"Do you know who I am?"

"Yeah," said Jay. "You're a gold-digger."

John Kerry. First he looks at the purse.

Howie Carr, a Boston Herald columnist and syndicated talk-radio host, has been covering John Kerry for 25 years.
Click to expand...

link

dallastigers, Feb 5, 2004

#7
dallastigers Founding Member

Joined:

Sep 2, 2002

Messages:

1,361

Likes Received:

1

Originally posted by JD
Of course it matters.

When a party continually,without interruption, loots the taxpayers to pay campaign contributors (or organizations in which they have a pecuiniary interest) like the republican party does for Halliburton, Bechtel (completely incapable of earning a straight nickle) and scores of others with handouts, subsidies, no bid, no audit, no-risk contracts, once again, damn straight it matters.
Click to expand...

If you really think Democrats are any better I am scared for your students. Clinton and Gore had "donations" from China, Buddhist monks, Hollywood, Trail Lawyers, Tyson in ARK,...etc , and do not forget the Pardons for donors.

Kerry seems to loot taxpayers for his own personal financial gain.

So again does it matter who wins this pissing contest when both parties are pissing on the voters. You only seem to care about Special Interests when you do not agree with those interests otherwise it does not seem to matter to you.

But also more and more is coming about Kerry's record and it does not look to good, but again if you agree with him I guess it does not matter.

dallastigers, Feb 5, 2004

#8
G_MAN113 Founding Member

Joined:

Nov 10, 2003

Messages:

3,386

Likes Received:

19

Originally posted by JD
Got those numbers handy?
Click to expand...

I'm still waiting for YOU to post your source on
Woody Jenkins' alleged shenanigans in the 1996 Senate race.
It's been about 6 weeks...dug that source up yet?

G_MAN113, Feb 5, 2004

#9
M.O.M Founding Member

Joined:

Jan 19, 2004

Messages:

264

Likes Received:

2

Amen.
I'm beginning to believe Bush is the Ken Lay of politics.
And Dick Cheney is his Jeff Skilling and Andy Fastow rolled into one.
The Republican party has spent specifically the past three years paying off Bush's big business contributors.
They have not an inkling of what to do for small businesses, the engine of the country's economy.
If it doesn't involve a government contract to give to a business on a no-bid basis and you haven't given the GOP a large contribution in return, you are s--- out of luck with this administration.
I think the tax breaks to rich individuals are appalling.
But that's not what I'm looking to hear from the Democrats.
I want a precise plan on what they plan to do for small businesses.
And not the dot.com kind which is designed to do an IPO in 6 months and cash out as quickly as possible.
I'm talking about the small businesses which employ people at a good wage.
I'm expecting, unfortunately, to hear about the laundry list of things like the rich's tax breaks, which I do agree is ludicrous.
But what we need is a leader who truly cares about the mom and pops of the world instead of Cheney's old cronies at Halliburton.

Originally posted by JD
Of course it matters.

When a party continually,without interruption, loots the taxpayers to pay campaign contributors (or organizations in which they have a pecuiniary interest) like the republican party does for Halliburton, Bechtel (completely incapable of earning a straight nickle) and scores of others with handouts, subsidies, no bid, no audit, no-risk contracts, once again, damn straight it matters.
Click to expand...

M.O.M, Feb 5, 2004

#10

(You must log in or sign up to reply here.)

Page 1 of 2

Share This Page