Democrats Assail, and Tap, 'Special Interests'

[Desperadoe]

CHARLESTON, S.C., Jan. 30 — The Democratic presidential hopefuls have been crossing the country this week promising to drive "special interests" and "influence peddlers" out of the White House.

But campaign finance reports show some contenders benefit significantly from the lobbyists and special interests that they attack.

While Senator John Kerry regularly promises to stand up to "big corporations," his campaign has taken money from executives on Wall Street and those representing the telecommunications industry, which is under his purview in Congress. Mr. Kerry denounces President Bush for catering to the rich, but he has depended more heavily on affluent donors than the other leading Democrats except for another populist, Senator John Edwards. Mr. Kerry's spokeswoman, Stephanie Cutter, said the contributions had no effect on his votes.

"Anybody who thought they were buying influence with John Kerry can look at his votes and know they're not getting their money's worth," Ms. Cutter said.<snip>

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/31/politics/campaign/31DONA.html?hp

[stickdog]

1. Note the major theme of this article is simply that ALL Dem candidates

are beholden to special interests. Both Dean's and Clark's record breaking small donor fundraising efforts are not lionized in comparison to Kerry's or Edwards' bigwig donors.

When front-runner Dean was getting attacked day after day after day, his foibles were almost never put in context with those of his rivals. Dean was instead judged lacking when compared to absolute perfection -- while the only mention of other candidates was a reiteration of their "confirming" attacks on Dean as well.