OOOHHHHH this is fun. Left me throw some more fuel on the fire
Kerry Funds Raise Questions
Donations From Tech Firm Spark Controversy for Candidate
From ABCNews.com
By Jake Tapper
February 9, 2004
On the night of his victory in the New Hampshire primary… Sen. John Kerry … warned so-called special interests that a new day was coming.
"We're coming, you're going, and don't let the door hit you on the way out!" he said to cheers.
The sincerity of that claim, however, depends upon one's definition of a "special interest." … [A]ccording to survey of federal records by The Washington Post, he is the Senate's No. 1 recipient of individual campaign contributions from lobbyists …
ABCNEWS has learned of a story involving Kerry taking legislative action that benefited a campaign contributor: Predictive Networks, a Cambridge, Mass., tech firm …
"Typically, a politician says that those who support me just want good government and those who support my opponents are special interests," quipped Larry Noble, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics.
Predictive Networks — now under new management and called Predictive Media — monitors what Internet and cable consumers are viewing and targets advertising accordingly.
As one might expect, such surveillance has raised privacy issues. In 2000, the U.S. Senate debated whether Internet and cable customers should get the opportunity up front to reject such surveillance …
Predictive Networks' CEO, Devin Hosea, met with Kerry and his staff on July 25, 2000. One day later, Kerry introduced a bill that would have enabled companies like Predictive Networks to automatically be allowed to monitor what consumers are viewing — placing the onus on customers to "opt-out" of surveillance if they wanted. …
According to Kerry campaign spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter, the bill, co-sponsored by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., had been drafted long before Kerry's meeting with Hosea. …
In February 2002, Hosea threw a fund-raiser for Kerry … According to [company co-founder Paul] Davis, the implied quid pro quo … made some executives uncomfortable. …
Hosea would not agree to an on-the-record interview with ABCNEWS … but he did deny that any company supplies or personnel were used for the Kerry event. Hosea confirmed that after the fund-raiser, a chartered plane took several company executives and others to New York City — but not before swinging by Washington, D.C., to drop off Kerry. …
That summer, Hosea hosted another fund-raiser for Kerry …
"Some of the investors, including our lead investors in the company, have very conservative political values and usually are Republican and quite conservative in their outlook," Davis said. "It was very surprising to see them writing large checks and bringing some other members of organizations in to write large checks for John Kerry, who is considered a progressive Democrat."
Why would conservatives give Kerry money?
"If you don't believe in Democratic Party values and you're receiving some kind of legislative benefit from a politician, the logical conclusion might be that the legislation somehow was tied to the money," Davis said.The legislation in this case, however, never became law.
No one contacted for this story has even remotely alleged that anyone affiliated with Kerry went so far as to imply a quid pro quo. …
Kerry makes a point of arguing that he has never taken any money from political action committees …
But all together, Hosea "bundled" more than $100,000 for Kerry. Bundling is the process through which an individual … collects many lawful individual campaign contributions and bundles them together …
"It's one thing to say you don't take PAC money, but again, when you accept bundled money, it is in a sense the same interest that's behind it – and often it's in much larger amounts," Noble said. "PAC money is limited to $5,000. The bundler can bundle together $100,000 to $200,000." So Kerry's claim to be free of special interest ties because PAC funds are verboten from his campaign "is symbolic more than it is practical," according to Noble.
Kerry currently has 32 such bundlers raising more than $100,000 apiece for his campaign, according to the good-government organization Common Cause. Lobbying registration records indicate these bundlers include a number of lobbyists …
So some question how much Kerry truly can claim to be a foe of special interests. …