Kerry got more lobbying $ than ANY other Senator in last 15 years

[Hoppin_Mad]

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.

-snip-

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64727-2004Jan30.html

[isbister]

1. 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."

[Clark Can WIN]

6. Why accept contributions from PNAC'ers who expect

returns on their investments?

Why not just avoid the appearance of impropriety?

Can he not garner more legitimate contributions and income?

Does he draw a line anywhere? Money from PNAC, money from unseemly lobbyists......... when is the money too dirty and ugly? Or does it not matter?

If he is our nominee, I would like to feel that he sets the bar a little higher than this. Ok, a LOT higher than this.

[sandnsea]

11. Clark's lobbying records?

When is he going to release all of his records of every meeting he ever had when he was a lobbyist? We need to get all of this out on the table now.

[girl gone mad]

2. And people wonder how he managed to..

pull off an "upset" in IA..

"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 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. "

[sandnsea]

3. Bill Weld - Ten Million Dollars

And he still had to take almost $2 million of his own money. Outrageously expensive election.

Edwards, by the way, financed his own campaign with $6 million, $2 million of donations.

It's expensive to get elected.

[isbister]

5. Chump Change

When you look at what Dean spent in Iowa and New Hampshire... I read somewhere that Dean spent around a million in the last week in NH alone.

[OneBlueSky]

4. I . . . . . don't . . . . . care . . .

who he's received money from . . . unlike Bush, he's not going to have his contributors setting up shop in the White House and writing the legislation that controls their industries . . . every one of these candidates either has accepted or, if nominated, will accept contribtions from interests we don't necessarily like . . . that's politics in 2004 . . . in a choice between their "insider" and our "insider," I'll vote for ours . . .

[girl gone mad]

7. How do you know that?

"unlike Bush, he's not going to have his contributors setting up shop in the White House and writing the legislation that controls their industries "

Did you read the article? Can you respond to the accusation that he granted favors to the telecom industry, particularly supporting the sale of our public airwaves?

[sandnsea]

8. He's releasing his records

All of them. Is Dean??

[girl gone mad]

9. When is he going to release all of them?

Talk is cheap.

Clark has already released all of his.

[sandnsea]

10. It's not the same

Clark released his military records, the military had them kept all nice and neat for him.

Kerry is talking about 19 years of meetings with every lobbyist or special interest person he ever met with. What the meetings were about. Real records. I'm sure he'll get it done as quickly as they can. Nobody else has voluntarily done this. Is Clark releasing his records about his lobbyist meetings? Is Edwards releasing his bundled lobbyist money? Is Dean releasing his Vermont records?

No. Kerry is an honorable person, that's why he does the right thing without being hounded to do it.

[girl gone mad]

12. No..

He released more than military records. He also released his records from the private sesctor and many others.

[sandnsea]

13. Got a link?

I haven't seen any records from his lobbying with Dick Cheney and the rest.