- Here is the money behind the new top dog in the Democratic
dog pound, John Kerry's Top Ten Career Patrons calculated by the Center
for Public Integrity, Washington.
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- 1. Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo PC,
Boston $223,046
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- 2. Fleet Boston Financial Corp., Boston $172,387
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- 3. AOL Time Warner Inc., New York $134,960
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- 4. Hale and Dorr LLP, Boston $123,258
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- 5. Hill, Holiday, Connors, Cosmopulos Inc., Boston
$119,300
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- 6. Harvard University $108,700
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- 7. Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, NY
$105,150
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- 8. Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi LLP, Minneapolis
$103,450
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- 9. Goldman Sachs Group Inc., NY $100,000
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- 10. Piper Rudnick, Baltimore $92,300
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- *Sen. John Kerry also created a soft money committee
(Citizen Soldier Fund), which raised approximately $1.35 million in unregulated
donations and spent $147,000 in Iowa during the last two years. "The
real powers that be in this country are not on any ballot. And they are
accountable to no one. The bottom line is that the American people have
a right to know who is underwriting their presidential candidates, and
their democracy."
-
- --From the first ever guest blog on GregPalast.com by
Charles Lewis, founder of the Center for Public Integrity. Lewis has
just released "The Buying of the President 2004." In 2000 the
guy with the least votes -- but the most money -- won, making the contest
an auction, not an election. Lewis tells you who the winning bidders are
in this race, beginning with the temporary resident at 1600 Pennsylvania
Avenue. --Greg Palast
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- And now, from Charles Lewis:
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- Our electoral process is broken, with about half or more
of America's eligible voters not voting in every federal election cycle.
After the Florida recount debacle, in which the likes of Fidel Castro and
Robert Mugabe lectured us on how to conduct democratic elections, we still
do not have a single, standardized system of voting throughout the nation.
The campaign process has become so expensive that it limits the talent
pool available today to only millionaires or those willing and able to
raise substantial sums of cash from wealthy and powerful interests with
business before the government. Forty members of the current U.S. Senate
are millionaires; less than one percent of the American people are millionaires.
And big money mixed with irregular and high-tech redistricting help explain
why the incumbent reelection rate in the House of Representatives the past
three elections has been more than 98 percent. These are the kind of numbers
we expect to see in countries like North Korea or China, not the United
States.
-
- Despite campaign finance reform, 2004 already is and
will ultimately be the most expensive election in U.S. history. President
George W. Bush has shattered his own astounding 1999 fundraising record
and collected $130 million in 2003 - that's more than half a million dollars
a day - and his campaign has $99 million in cash on hand with no major
Republican primary challenger. Bush's official third quarter cash on hand
number of $73 million was more than all of the major Democratic candidates
and all of the Democratic national party committees combined ($54 million)
through September!
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- There is an especially compelling reason for candidates
to make this headlong rush for cash. As we mentioned in the 1996 and 2000
editions of The Buying of the President, the central, most salient, single
fact about the White House selection process-a discovery first made by
Republican political fundraising consultant Stan Huckaby-is that in every
presidential election since 1976, the candidate who has raised the most
money at the end of the year preceding the election, and been eligible
for federal matching funds, has become his party's nominee for the general
election. At midnight on December 31st, it was Carter and Ford who had
amassed the most campaign cash in 1975, Carter and Reagan in 1979, Mondale
and Reagan in 1983, Dukakis and G.H.W. Bush in 1987, Clinton and Bush in
1991, Clinton and Dole in 1995 and Gore and G.W. Bush in 1999.
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- For Lewis' complete web log, go to www.GregPalast.com
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