Kerry Among TOP Recipients From Special Interests

[Closer]

Kerry no stranger to lobbyists' donations

Senator among top recipients in Congress from special interests

By Dana Wilkie and Joe Cantlupe
COPLEY NEWS SERVICE

January 30, 2004


WASHINGTON – In his quest for the White House, Sen. John Kerry says he is committed to sweeping out the "special interests" he contends are trying to manipulate federal laws and policies.
But the Massachusetts lawmaker and Democratic presidential front-runner is among Congress' top recipients of money from some of those special interests – drug companies, HMOs, lawyers, investment firms, real estate interests and contractors, among others.

Kerry spokesman Michael Meehan said the senator is only running against "the big companies that the Republicans have brought inside the White House to write legislation that directly benefits their companies."

....



This election cycle, Kerry took $531,251 from the health care industry, putting him among the top four recipients of such money – just behind President Bush and Democratic presidential contenders Howard Dean of Vermont and Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut.

Nearly $34,000 of that money came from HMOs or other health services companies, and an additional $55,650 came from pharmaceutical companies and firms that make other health products. He also has received funds from doctors and other health professionals.

Kerry also accepted $26,700 this election cycle from the oil and gas industry, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that tracks how campaign money affects elections and public policy. That makes him one of the Senate's top 20 recipients of such money.

There's LOTS more, continue on here http://signonsandiego.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=SignOnSanDiego.com+%3E+News+%3E+Politics+--+Kerry+no+stranger+to+lobbyists%27+donations&expire=&urlID=9116821&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.signonsandiego.com%2Fnews%2Fpolitics%2F20040130-9999_1n30kerry.html&partnerID=621

[EllieDem]

1. I guess Dean hasn't informed his supporters

that his new guy Neel is a former lobbyist. He convienently leaves things out.

[Rose Siding]

4. It's all open source and up front

Dean is straight with us and left nothing out.

snip from Message from Neel on the blog>
You may have read that I am the “ultimate Washington insider”, a lobbyist, and so on. After nearly 20 years in public service I worked for a few years in the private sector as an advocate for local telephone companies, but never lobbied the White House on their issues. That period gave me the opportunity to reconnect with my family (I coached my sons’ little league teams for nine years) and catch my breath after the roller coaster time in the Clinton-Gore White House. But I really missed the sense of mission and passion of presidential politics.

http://blog.deanforamerica.com/archives/003459.html

[girl gone mad]

5. Uh.. I think they've

gotten the word by now.

In fact, I'd be surprised if everyone with a television set wasn't aware of that fact.

[PROGRESSIVE1]

2. "CEO" of Dean for America Roy Neel is a former lobbyist, small world...

isn't it???

:eyes:

Speaking of which, since when did Howard Dean embrace the business world, you know, with that knew title, "CEO"???

:eyes:

[emulatorloo]

3. DUPE dupe dupe -- see below

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=233826&mesg_id=234523

Check out bigtree's post #10 for an explication of this article

[girl gone mad]

7. Just spin.

The referrenced post doesn't address any of my conccerns.

"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. "

"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. "

"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. "

Did Kerry agree to sell off our airwaves because he and his brother stood to gain financially from it?

That is a huge concern to me, because I was completely opposed to the auction, as were many others. If Kerry is in bed with the telecom industry, he is little better than Bush with respect to media consolidation, deregulation and privatization.

[robcon]

6. Kerry : the TOP user of special interest money in the Senate

According to the Washington Post, Kerry was the number one recipient of special interest money in the U.S. Senate over the last 15 years...

Kerry Leads in Lobby Money
Anti-Special-Interest Campaign Contrasts With Funding
By Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 31, 2004

"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..."