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McCain, Obama and bundles of money in White House race
WASHINGTON
Petroleumworld.com, Aug 07, 2008In a White House race that is shattering fundraising records, both Barack Obama and John McCain are relying on super-rich "bundlers" to rake in the cash -- raising questions about the sources of the money and favors that might be owed back.
Reports Wednesday focused on maximum campaign donations given to the Republican McCain by lowly company employees, shop workers and store managers who might not normally have such funds to spare.
Those donations were funneled through wealthy bundlers, generous donors in their own right who collate checks from other individuals in their professional or social networks.
According to OpenSecrets.org, a website that tracks money in politics, Obama had raised a mammoth total of 339.2 million dollars by the end of June and McCain about 145.5 million.
Justifying his decision in June to renounce public financing, Obama said his campaign relied on an army of small donors rather than contributions from big business.
But according to the New York Times, one-third of Obama donors have each given him 1,000 dollars or more, for a total of 112 million dollars.
The Democrat's operation to tap wealthier donors relies on more than 500 bundlers who have each collected at least 50,000 dollars for the campaign, the newspaper said.
"This really proves how enormously valuable it is to have a network of fundraisers out there shaking the bushes for you," said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, which runs the OpenSecrets site.
Many of those powerful Obama players are from industries that keep up influential lobbying activities in Washington, including the hedge fund industry, trial lawyers, real estate and entertainment, the report noted.
Obama has gone against industry wishes in supporting higher taxes on Wall Street hedge funds. Yet his bundlers include Kenneth Griffin, the billionaire boss of the Citadel Investment fund, who has also donated to McCain.
Some top donors to President George W. Bush have won US ambassadorships. They include William Timken, the ambassador to Germany who was reported to have barred embassy officials from attending a recent Obama rally in Berlin.
But Jonathan Perdue, a California business consultant who has raised more than 250,000 dollars for Obama, denied any ulterior motives.
"This is about Barack Obama and changing the direction of our country," he told the New York Times.
The McCain campaign also counts on about 500 bundlers to do its heavy lifting among donors, including Harry Sargeant, the owner of an oil-trading company that has won potentially lucrative contracts from the Pentagon.
The Washington Post said Sargeant had amassed checks from small donors who, in some cases, were not even registered voters. They included a car mechanic, the manager of a pharmacy and the owners of a hookah lounge.
Both Sargeant and the donors were vague when asked to explain how he persuaded them to give away the money, the report said.
"I have a lot of Arab business partners. I do a lot of business in the Middle East. I've got a lot of friends," Sargeant told the newspaper.
"I ask my friends to support candidates that I think are worthy of supporting. They usually come through for me."
The Talking Points Memo site reported Monday that a husband and wife of modest means had given 61,600 dollars to McCain's campaign and to the Republican National Committee in late June.
The wife was identified as Alice Rocchio, an office manager in New York for oil giant Hess Corp., and her husband as Pasquale Rocchio, a foreman for the national rail operator Amtrak.
Their giving coincided with hefty donations from eight Hess executives, just after the Arizona senator dropped his opposition to offshore oil drilling.
Alice Rocchio was quoted as insisting that the money was her own and she was not a conduit for possibly illegal corporate donations from Hess, which could not be reached for comment. The McCain campaign said it followed the law.
Individuals can give a maximum of 2,300 dollars to a candidate's general election campaign, and as much as they want to parties and other political groups. Companies and unions are barred from donating, but legal loopholes permit funds to be channeled to political parties.
Story by Alain Jean-Robert from AFP
AFP 06 1747 GMT 08 08
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