[pf] the power of money, in the US at least.

· It's my contention that quite a few New Zealanders are better-informed
about the USA, and especially its politics, than most Americans.     D.

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At 19:21 18/4/2001 +1200, Richard Selinkoff wrote to GV-NZ with Subject: 

In regard to Jeremy Hall's dilemma in Canberra and Jeanette's remark about
Coca-Cola: who gives how much money to whom (for instance, to that good ole
boy Dubya) in U.S. politics is a matter of public record, and the public
accounting is done by a public-service organisation called the Center for
Responsive Politics. Their website, http://www.opensecrets.org , is a
treasure-trove of interesting information for those who realise that the
best way to understand U.S. politics and government is to (in those
immortal words of Woodstein's Deep Throat) "follow the money."
  
A brief overview for those too busy to peruse the site: of direct
contributions to W himself, the single greatest contributor was:
 MBNA America Bank at US$240,675 (out of total receipts of US$193,088,650).
Indeed, most of the top 20 individual contributors came from the banking
and financial-services sector.
  
Coded by industry (with 75% of contributions coded so far by CRP), the
group to contribute the most to W directly was the associations of retired
people (US$8,267,703), followed by the legal profession, real estate,
securities & investment, misc finance, etc., with oil & gas interests 8th,
donating US$1,846,331.
  
Of perhaps more interest is the record of contributions to the Republican
Party (total: US$691,804,099), rather than directly to George II.
 Party donations are less regulated and include the notorious "soft money"
donations. The top contributor here was telecom giant
 AT&T (US$2,477,556), followed by tobacco-pusher
 Philip Morris (US$2,146,540).
  
Coded by industry (87% of coding now completed), the rankings stand at: 
{1} retired (US$33,881,017); 
{2} securities & investment (US$29,338,687); 
{3} real estate (US$22,569,741); 
{4} oil & gas (US$15,158,760).
  
Perhaps one explanation by the relatively miserly contributions from the
oil & gas sector could be that it felt it didn't really need to bribe W all
that much, seein' as how he'd grown up in the awl bidniz and spent most of
his life in it and as how most of his family and friends (and his
administration) are either from or still in it. The CRP has interesting
stuff on these folks, too.
  
Coca-Cola is back in the pack. Microsoft, by the way, nursing a grudge
against Clinton's Justice Dept for the anti-trust suit, gave big to the
Republicans (over US$1.6 million).
  
Reminding you that US govt and business both are built on the premise that
There's One Born Every Minute,
  
Richard

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sent-on to Positive Futures list by David.
(David MacClement) davd@ihug.co.nz 
http://www.geocities.com/davd.geo/index.html#top
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