Kerrys record of not accepting contributions from corporations or P.A.C.'s is well known.
Dean's statements about his money only coming from small sources has also been disproves, give that a lot of his contributions have been seen to come from the Vermont Energy Industry, under circumstances related to his having cut deals with thme only days weeks before cutting deals with them that gave them what they wanted in Vermont:
CLF seeks details of Dean administration’s talks with utilities
March 11, 2002
(from the State section)
By SUSAN SMALLHEER Southern Vermont Bureau
MONTPELIER — The Conservation Law Foundation will file a freedom of information request with the Dean administration today to find out how many contacts it has had with Vermont utility executives over the pending sale of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant.
Mark Sinclair, senior attorney with the environmental group, said Monday that recent news reports about the financial contributions made by Vermont utility executives or board members to Gov. Howard Dean’s presidential campaign political action committee were “too much of a coincidence.”
Sinclair said the new offer from Entergy Nuclear of Jackson, Miss., last week wasn’t substantially better than the original bid, and doesn’t really address the serious concerns raised by the state earlier this winter about local control and other economic issues.
“The department didn’t get anything,” he said.
Sinclair compared it to the negotiations with Vice President Dick Cheney by energy companies that are now subject to an investigation by the General Accounting Office.
http://rutlandherald.com/Archive/Articles/Article/43924Dean raises money from energy sources
February 27, 2002
By David Gram
ASSOCIATED PRESS
MONTPELIER — When Gov. Howard Dean wanted to raise money for a possible presidential bid, he followed the example of a former governor of Texas and called on his friends in the energy industry.
Nearly a fifth of the roughly $111,000 collected in its first months by Dean’s presidential political action committee, the Fund for a Healthy America, came from people with ties to Vermont’s electric utilities, according to a recent Federal Elections Commission filing.
It should be no surprise. Dean and utility executives have had a long and friendly relationship.
One donor who gave Dean’s PAC the maximum amount allowed — $5,000 — said he did so because he and his wife “agree with many of the things the fund is talking about — fiscal conservatism, education, health care.”
http://timesargus.com/Legislature/Story/43125.htmlThis would be something one could ignore, if there were not past scandals in which Dean took money for campaigns within days of vetoing legislation that the same people who gave him the money wanted vetoed:
...Reports also described allegations that Governor Dean vetoed a pharmacy bill after collecting $ 6,000 in campaign contributions from drug companies...
...The influence of out-of-state donations: "Outside money is one of Howard Dean's specialties. Of the $ 312,290 the governor raised for his 1996 election, 65 percent came from out-of-state contributors: labor unions, Washington lawyer-lobbyists, the health care industry, to name a few of the special interests." n13 For the 1994 election "Dean, for example, received more money from major pharmaceutical manufacturers during the reporting period ($ 11,000) thin he did from people and companies located in Burlington ($ 10,460)." n14 One editorial said, "it's no mystery why out-of-state contributors pumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into Vermont campaigns. ... They're trying to buy influence. But the cost is public trust."...
http://www.brookingsinstitution.org/dybdocroot/gs/cf/headlines/cases/LandellvSorrell.DOCUntil Dean'srecord is opened to the public, and a list of the repeat contributors to Deans campaign, along with lists of the corporations they work for, Dean's statements about other candidates contributions is simply a set of lies easily disproven.
Lets look at one way in which Dean has recieved large sums of money from large organizations. The procedure is called bundling, in which a large organization breaks up its coontributons into smaller contributions by its employees (without these employees necessarily agreeing to the transaction)
In the current presidential campaign, President Bush has raised more money than all of the Democratic candidates combined. However, contributions to Democrats raise the same kinds of questions as do contributions to Bush. For example, as of September 30, 2003, Representative Dick Gephardt had received $126,000 from the Teamsters Union and $48,000 from the Operating Engineers Union. Employees of the law firm of Irell & Manella bundled $77,000 for Senator Joe Lieberman and University of California employees contributed $63,000 to Howard Dean.
http://www.teachablemoment.org/high/election4.htmlThe statement that Dean is receiving all of his contributions from people donating 100 dollars or less is no indication that much of his money is not commng from corporations. As a matter of fact, the practice of bundling is now seen to the one method of getting around campaign limits that is almost impossible to track.
The fact that Dean recieved his first contributions from energy executives, who actually describe the process by which they donated 5,000 dollars to Dean (a persons limit is 2,000) is rather indicative that Dean was engaging in this practice before the other candidates were even running.
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