Charles Lewis on Democracy Now yesterday: where do candidates get their $$

[AP]

The Buying of the President 2004: Who's Really Bankrolling Bush & His Democratic Challengers -– And What They Expect In Return
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/01/09/1541218

This was a really interesting breakdown of where all the candidates get their money. I've posted the part on Dean, but they talk about all of the candidates.

Discuss.


CHARLES LEWIS: Howard Dean, Vermont is a funny state because they have limits on contributions of $400. All the Democratic numbers are approximately, well, a tenth of Bush's numbers, but particularly so in Vermont. Even after 11 years as governor, his highest contractor is, you know, $60,000 or something like that. He's got money from some of the telecom companies and things. The most interesting thing we found about him was he had helped - there was a utility deregulation in Vermont - and he basically assisted the utility industry in a way that infuriated many, many rate payers and may saddle them with hundreds of millions of dollars in higher rates. And one of his chief of staff, went to work as a lobbyist and a top person for the leading utility. That's not something that you see in the ads, either. It's just interesting. He also was - we all know that he has had an issue about his gubernatorial papers being opened up - but he also in 11 years did not open up any, did not have disclosure for himself and his own assets which are nearly $4 million or any state legislator himself and his lieutenant governor. Vermont has the worst disclosure in America. Vermont and two others have no disclosure for personal assets of their senior folks. Not only did Dean try to improve or reform it or change it, he did not endorse legislative initiatives to try to reform it.

AMY GOODMAN: What does it mean, the governor's papers? What's in these papers?

CHARLES LEWIS: That, I don't know. I would dearly love to read the papers. In a way, it's unclear. Is it correspondence from supporters? Is it memos from a staff about I'd like to run for president? I don't think anyone really knows what's in those documents. We know that Dean has portrayed it as a proprietary people for their personal privacy who contacted him, but it has certainly given the Republicans and the Republican National Committee an issue to portray themselves as more open than Howard Dean which has amusing ironies, to say the least.

AMY GOODMAN: Certainly the campaign changes as someone becomes as successful as Dean has become, starting on the internet, getting the small amounts of money and then when the establishment sees that he is surging ahead, a whole new group starts to give money. What has been the transformation of that campaign? How is the nature of where the money comes from changed?

CHARLES LEWIS: Well, the nature is that a lot of big companies that maybe have never even visited Vermont are giving tons of money, and there are telecom companies, there's AOL Time-Warner. Anyway, a lot of them are embracing Dean now in the flooding of the zone, so to speak, with their cash. The part that we have to watch now, I have to tell that you because we have tracked his numbers in the first six months of the year, we now have the third quarter numbers up on the site. But we are going to see more of this. You look at his donors. You have Howard Dean's campaign staff was the third highest donor. Patron for his career. That shows how anemic his numbers are. The third highest patron through June was $15,000. From all of those folks. AOL Time-Warner is the top donor and Microsoft is coming in, and Goldman Sachs and IBM and you have union support, united food and commercial workers. But what you will see now is more. Now that he's up to $40 million, the numbers are going to get more corporate over time. It's just inevitable, because they're worried that he might actually be the nominee and some, in their way of thinking, some fluke may happen and he might actually become president. They better make sure they have an in with the next president. So you're going to see money flow more and more to him. Obviously, everyone is waiting to see what happens to him in Iowa and New Hampshire. It does relate directly to what happens in those states, what the money flow will be in the next few weeks.

[revcarol]

1. IBM sends jobs to India, and sends money to Dean.

Hmmmm.... interesting.

[DUreader]

2. D.K. "...if there's one labor candidate...it's Mr. Kucinich."

AMY GOODMAN: And Dennis Kucinich, the Ohio congressman.

CHARLES LEWIS: Kucinich is the most quintessential Democratic candidate if you
look at his donors and the perceptions we have as Americans of their donor base. I
believe nine out of his top ten patrons are unions, and the other one is the trial lawyers
association. The numbers are anemic. There's hardly - there's not much money there.
But, you know, he has done things, obviously, to help labor and big surprise, because
when you have that much concentration from nine of the top ten, you clearly, if there's
one labor candidate, pure labor candidate at the highest levels of your patron list, it's
Mr. Kucinich.

[revcarol]

3. An AFL/CIO organizer who lives in my home town said to me:

"Kucinich is labor's dream candidate."

Marched with SEIU, brought down the house at the dockworkers' lockout, yet ignored by "organized labor" and working people in general.