Bill Moyers' Now: The Buying of the President, 2004

[Don Claybrook]

I just finished watching Now’s segment on the candidates (Bush & the Democrats) and how they’re financed (www.pbs.org/now). Some interesting tidbits included a statistic that, since 1975, the candidate with the most money has always gotten the nomination of his party. No real surprise there. In his first 3 months of campaigning, John Edwards attended somewhere around 350 fundraisers. The point being made was that it’s almost a requirement anymore for candidates to attend lots and lots of fundraisers if they are to have any hope of winning a nomination. It was mentioned that Gephardt’s biggest campaign contributor was Anheuser-Busch. They talked about Wes Clark still being a lobbyist for homeland security interests when he announced his candidacy. The Democrats’ biggest contributor since 1978 has been AFSCME (the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees). The Republicans’ biggest contributor over the same time period was Phillip Morris. Enron is still Bush’s #1 contributor overall (including his time as Governor of TX).

Moyers also asked the guy from the Center for Public Integrity (sorry, I’ve forgotten his name, but he’s been on a few times) about Howard Dean. He asked if Dean’s campaign was “cleaner” as a result of getting so many small contributions from regular citizens. The Center for Public Integrity guy said he hesitated to use words like cleaner because he didn’t want to be seen as partisan, but that yes, Dean’s campaign was somewhat less beholden at THIS stage of the campaign. However, he cautioned, this is the time where the big money will start pouring into Dean’s campaign, presumably, and therefore Dean hasn’t really faced the donors who will want their favor returned at a later date.

All of the above was paraphrased from memory. Wonk usually makes a download available sometime over the weekend for anyone interested in audio or video of the segment. I understand that the Now website makes streaming video available. Highly recommended segment.

[Eric J in MN]

1. Did the man from the Center for Public Integrity explain what form

Did the man from the Center for Public Integrity explain what form he expects big money to go to Dean in?

Is it someone bundling $2,000 donations from friends?

Or someone making a big Democratic Party contribution and calling Dean to take credit?

[Don Claybrook]

2. In a different part of the interview

He did say something like "If I'm a rich guy and I want to give millions to a candidate, there are ways I can still do that 'under the radar'" (paraphrase). He didn't elaborate a great deal, but said that it's very difficult, near unto impossible, for journalists or others to track this giving while it's current.

During the piece on Dean, he seemed to be talking about above-board contributions. And although he didn't say this, I assume that we're talking about the same old thing where the Acme Co. wants to give to candidate X. So the CEO and his wife and his gardener and his cat and his priest all give the maximum amount. Same with all the senior VP's, and so on.

For what it's worth, it was my impression that he sees Dean as an admirable candidate, but he was just warning about wolves in sheep's clothing just around the corner. Just my impression.

[KoKo]

3. Dean got his "Push" from the little donors, and that's the big difference

in Dean and the others. As he goes along, he will need to remember the "grassroots, internet, Move On and how he came to get where he is.

The others never had to worry about us or care. The BIG Donars were the way it's "always been done" and they figured it would be done that way now. Dean's campaign was the one that broke the mold.

Let's see how that goes.

[blm]

7. Once again you fail to acknowledge that Kerry never took any corporate pac

money or ANY special interest money EVER in all of his campaigns. He and Wellstone advocated for public financing for years.

So, please stop treating him like a corporatist while propping up Dean as some hero, when Dean's record as governor is the most corporate friendly of all the candidates.

[Don Claybrook]

8. At first, I thought they'd discuss candidate-by-candidate

As it turned out, they only discussed Clark, Edwards, Gephardt, and Dean.

[ShimokitaJer]

21. Never?

http://www.bop2004.org/bop2004/report.aspx?aid=4

WASHINGTON, May 7, 2003 — Sen. John F. Kerry, D-Mass., whose largest campaign contributor lobbies on behalf of telecommunication interests, pushed the legislative priorities of its clients in the wireless industry on several occasions, a Center for Public Integrity analysis of campaign, lobbying and congressional records has found. That analysis is part of the Center's research for The Buying of the President 2004 (to be published by HarperCollins), which tracks the financial backers and interests of the major candidates for the White House.

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.

Boston-based Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo P.C. has been the biggest financial backer of the Massachusetts Democrat's two decades-long political career in elected office, with its employees contributing nearly $187,000 to various Kerry races, including his current presidential

-clip-

Look, blm, nobody comes out clean in this. Every one of the candidates has accepted money from special interests, and every one can try to argue that the actions they took were not motivated by that money. It's certainly valid to criticize a candidate for taking suspicious donations, but I'm sick of your hypocrisy in claiming that only Kerry has a clean nose in all this. Start dealing with the facts and stop forgiving your candidate for the same flaws for which you condemn others.

[blm]

22. Yes...NEVER. Read the whole story.

That firm was his BROTHER's firm and 170,000 over an 18 year period from his brother's CO-WORKERS is chump change. One Bush pioneeer gives that in one year. It wasn't a PAC donation and the reporter exaggerated every aspect of the story to make it APPEAR to be more than it was.

Get real, yourself. That article PROVES how ethical Kerry really is.

[ShimokitaJer]

23. So it's okay to accept donations

and vote in line with an industry's interests as long as your brother works there? I think you need to look up "conflict of interest" sometime.

And if you want to look for PAC money, look no further than OpenSecrets, which lists Kerry as having accepted $48,084 in PAC contributions so far in the 2004 presidential race. That's far less than most candidates, and a very small amount of his $20 million dollar total, but it's also three times Dean's $15,500 in PAC money. And if you look at the leadership PAC's, Kerry's Citizen Soldier Fund has over $2 million in receipts, with $1.3 million of that in soft money donations. Contrast that with Dean's Fund for a Healthy America, with just over $200,000 in receipts and no soft money donations.

I don't doubt that Kerry is far less dependent on these kinds of donations than Bush, but that's not saying much, is it? All I'm saying is that you have no right to attack Dean on these grounds while you hold Kerry up as a bastion of purity.

[blm]

24. That's what the article insinuates but not true.

His brother's FIRM did some legal work for a telecom company. Kerry was voting in support of a bill that aided telecom businesses that were a growing sector in Mass.

There was no quid pro quo there. You trying to say that Kerry's brother and his coworkers WOULDN'T have donated over 18 YEARS if Kerry hadn't voted favorably for a bill that benefitted ONE of their clients?

That's ABSURD.

Dean IS a corporate whore who favored big business always throughout his career and pushed energy deregulation fer chrissakes.

You can't compare the two at all. Kerry NEVER took corporate pac money.He never took ANY pac money. Get your facts straight before you jump the gun and try to slander a man for NO reason other than to distract from your guy's corporate shilling.

[ShimokitaJer]

26. No response to the Open Secrets data?

Perhaps that's because it shows you are wrong about Kerry and PAC money. Allow me to repeat it for you.

OpenSecrets lists Kerry as having accepted $48,084 in PAC contributions so far in the 2004 presidential race. That's far less than most candidates, and a very small amount of his $20 million dollar total, but it's also three times Dean's $15,500 in PAC money. And if you look at the leadership PAC's, Kerry's Citizen Soldier Fund has over $2 million in receipts, with $1.3 million of that in soft money donations. Contrast that with Dean's Fund for a Healthy America, with just over $200,000 in receipts and no soft money donations.

Once again, I have to ask you to get off your friggin' high horse about this. You're not going to get anywhere claiming Kerry's $180,000 is "chump change" because it's not as much as Bush makes from his cronies. It was you who insisted on claiming the moral high ground for Kerry, so it's you who needs to stop attacking other candidates based on Kerry's supposed purity.

[ShimokitaJer]

27. Eight hours later... still no reply

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you're sleeping. I'll just keep this kicked for you until you wake up then.

[ShimokitaJer]

28. Six more hours go by - no reply

I've seen you posting, blm, so I know you're out there. I'll just give it one last kick.

[Wonk]

25. mp3s, quicktimes, and other links here

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1000954#1004527

[Wonk]

30. kick

[Kolesar]

31. Kick

[madmax]

4. His name is Charles Lewis

Watched NOW and ordered the book from Amazon. Very depressing piece of reporting.

[Don Claybrook]

5. Thank you

I couldn't remember his name for the life of me. I think I've seen him on Now 3 different times. I need to remember his name. :)

[madmax]

6. Anytime

:hi: I wouldn't have remembered his name either if I hadn't felt so compelled to order the book. I actualy cried during his interview with Moyers. By the time he got to the Alaskan forrest segment I was a basket case.

[lovedems]

9. I thought his statistic about the candidate who has the most money

the year before the election, won the election, period was scary! I did like that he commented on the fact that we have a huge problem and the people need to take the country back from the corportations.

BTW, I love Bill Moyers.

[Clark4VotingRights]

10. Sounds like a good segment, thanks.

And you posted it just in time for me to catch it on the west
coast. So double thanks!

I gotta get in the habit of watching Moyers. Doh.

[Nazgul35]

11. Hey smoking DUers...

#1 contributor to Repugs is Phillip Morris!!!!!


enuf said!

[TeeYiYi]

13. According to the show . . .

. . . the number one contributor to Bush* was and still is Enron. That is insane. Shrub is still taking money from Enron. I wonder how all of the displaced employees of Enron feel about that.

He also mentioned Enron's contributions to Clinton and Bush 1.

He implied that Enron will try to contribute to the Dem frontrunner.

TYY

[Clark4VotingRights]

12. Yeah, that was a helluva segment. Pretty horrifying.

http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/buyingpres.html

It doesn't appear that they have the transcript up yet.

It shows how broken the system/the "democracy" is.
And didn't reflect well on Clark and Gephardt, for the reasons
already stated.

They also had a helluva segment on UNOCAL/pipelines/human
rights abuses. And the trashing of Alaska by Bush.

Cheers!

[truth2power]

14. The other thread in LBN was locked.

I saw Moyers tonight and I'm concerned about Clark's lobbying for defense industries and not disclosing that. Over in LBN that seemed to hit a raw nerve with some but I don't see why it isn't a valid issue to raise.

[Clark4VotingRights]

16. I assume it's a valid issue, but it's not "late breaking news"

I wouldn't hesitate to discuss it here, tho' be aware you'll
need a flack jacket.

I'd like to see the transcript from the show.
There was some strong stuff in there.

[truth2power]

15. Dupe. Sorry. n/t

[DemDogs]

17. Charles Lewis on Dean - taking special interest money

While governor of Vermont, Howard Dean accepted personal pay from special interests at least five times for speeches and also received more than $60,000 in checks and pledges for his charity fund from insurers who benefited from a state tax break, according to documents and interviews.
...
Charles Lewis, head of the Washington-based Center for Public Integrity that studies public officials' conduct, said Friday the revelations risk tarnishing Dean's self-portrait as a political outsider. "This is the same kind of thing that goes on in Washington, 7 days a week, 24 hours a day," Lewis said. "It's not something you would expect the reformer, outsider candidate would have in his background."

[blm]

19. That's one of the big lies of the Dean campaign. He really IS an insider

who is PRETENDING to be an outsider.

Dean was one of those corporate supporting centrists who was pulling the Dem party to the right for years.

He was lying through his teeth when he blamed others. It was lefties like Wellstone , Kennedy and Kerry who kept pulling to the left to help maintain some balance.

I can't believe so many Dems fell for Dean's bullshit.

[isbister]

18. Not to be fresh but it is one of the reasons...

...why I support Kerry. He and his wife are worth 600-700+ million dollars.They don't have to do all that they do for those less fortunate but they do it because they have souls, they truly care about their fellow human beings.

There's two kinds of super rich, those that will go out and help people... try to do the right thing in life... and those like bush.

[Dover]

20. Does Moyers provide transcripts on his web site. I didn't see any link

there for a transcript of this show.

http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/buyingpres.html

[Kolesar]

29. Clark was a lobbiest for the defense industry, not a political bystander

http://www.bop2004.org/bop2004/candidate.aspx?cid=12

SNIP

Jumping onto the general's bandwagon were Mickey Kantor, the former commerce secretary and chair of the 1992 Clinton-Gore campaign, and Donnie Fowler, national field director of Al Gore's 2000 campaign and the son of former DNC chairman Don Fowler (Fowler resigned from the campaign in early October). Mark Fabiani, who served as Clinton's point man on Whitewater for the 1996 campaign and as Gore's deputy campaign manager in 2000, also signed on, as did Ron Klain, a Washington attorney who worked on Clinton's 1992 campaign, his transition team, and later as former attorney general Janet Reno's chief of staff. Political neophytes generally can't count on assembling seasoned campaign hands, but then Clark isn't exactly a political neophyte. Clark raised his profile as a television analyst, landed a job at a politically powerful Arkansas investment bank, and plied the age-old game of trading on his military contacts as a corporate lobbyist. The former supreme allied commander in Europe, four star general and Rhodes scholar is a very savvy Washington insider.

SNIP

Two weeks after declaring his intention to run for president, Clark was still registered to represent a high tech contractor, Acxiom Corporation, giving him the rare distinction of seeking the White House while registered as a lobbyist. Shortly after Clark announced his candidacy, a company spokesman said the general no longer lobbied for Acxiom, but, according to the Senate Office of Public Records, Clark had not filed any termination papers.

SNIP

In the NOW segment, Charles Lewis said that in previous years a lobbiest would have been laughed off the stage if he tried to take the presidency, now it apparently does not raise an eyebrow

CONTINUED:

According to federal disclosure records, Clark lobbied directly on "information transfers, airline security and homeland security issues," for Acxiom, which sought funding to do controversial informational background checks on passengers for airlines. Privacy advocates have criticized the program, called the Computer Assisted Passenger Pre-Screening System II, because of concerns that the data collected would be an overly invasive violation of individuals' rights to privacy. The public outcry has been so strong that there is a bi-partisan effort to create more oversight for the program to protect privacy interests if CAPPS II is implemented.

Clark lobbied the Department of Justice, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the Department of Transportation for the company. Clark also reported, on his lobbyist disclosure forms, that he promoted Acxiom to the Senate and the executive office of the president. According an Arkansas Democrat-Gazette report, he even met personally with Vice President Richard Cheney.

He also made a pitch for the kind of tracking that the company's wares can perform while acting as a commentator on CNN. On January 6, 2002, four days after filing as a lobbyist for Acxiom, Clark told an interviewer, in response to worries that private planes could be used for terrorist attacks, "We've been worried about general aviation security for some time. The aircraft need to be secured, the airfields need to be secured, and obviously we're going to also have to go through and do a better job of screening who could fly aircraft, who the private pilots are, who owns these aircraft. So it's going to be another major effort."

Naturally, he did not reveal to CNN's viewers that the company he lobbied for had a substantial stake in this issue.

END

I doubt that this star-spangled insider of the military-industrial complex with ties to the Bush administration is who most Democrats want to be their nominee.