Freedom Socialist • Vol. 29, No. 3 • June-July 2008

The road to the White House
Lots of cash: the corporate seal of approval

by Andrea Bauer


It’s become a cliche to say that money buys elections. Still, every election cycle, the main candidates, one and all, claim to be exceptions, while happily pointing fingers at the other guys — the ones over there slurping at the corporate feeding trough.

This year is no different.

John McCain, of course, is one of the authors of a 2002 campaign financing reform bill. The legislation’s stated intent was to cut down on the sneaky ways in which Big Business funds its favorite candidates, despite laws that ban outright corporate contributions from coming in the front door. But side doors like PACs, lobbyists, and “bundled” donations from a company’s shareholders, employees and their families remain wide open.

And McCain has the welcome mat out.

The presidential hopeful who declares that “I’m the only one the special interests don’t give any money to” has raked in almost $1.2 million in contributions from the telephone and telecommunications sectors during his legislative career — more than any other senator.

Coincidentally, he favors giving the telecoms legal immunity for aiding and abetting government spying on U.S. residents. He also sides with them in opposing net neutrality, which means a more free and open Internet. Certainly, for business, if $1.2 million can buy monopoly rights on the Web, it’s a small price to pay.

McCain’s antagonist Barack Obama has his own claims. Among them is, “I don’t take money from oil companies.” True, technically, and neither does his competition, since direct corporate donations are illegal. But Obama has gotten more than $200,000 from Exxon, Shell, and other petro-biz employees, and two oil company CEOs have pledged to shake loose at least $50,000 each for his campaign coffers.

Obama has more than earned the payback, having voted for every single appropriations bill to fund the war for oil in Iraq — now totaling over $300 billion. The defense industry can’t be too unhappy with Obama either.

Hillary Clinton, who has tried to stake out a place for herself as the champion of the lunch-pail worker, issues this rallying cry: “Let’s start holding corporate America responsible, make them pay their fair share again. Enough with the corporate welfare. Enough with the golden parachutes.” Fiery words.

Yet, a few years back, she voted for a bill that would have granted corporations $170 billion in corporate tax breaks over 10 years. If that doesn’t scream corporate welfare, what does?

Speaking of Clinton, let’s talk about healthcare.

Healthcare is one of the top concerns of people in the U.S. — because so many don’t have it, and when they do, they’re being bled dry by ridiculously rising costs. Hillary Clinton took charge of fixing this problem while Bill Clinton was president. Result? When the two left the White House, more people were uninsured than ever before. Now Hillary has most-favored-candidate status with givers from the healthcare industry, although Barack runs not far behind.

The medical sector handed out more than $3.7 million to the presidential candidates as a group in 2007. But that’s small potatoes compared to the $2.2 billion it paid out for lobbying Congress over the past 10 years.

Nothing short of a radical solution is going to resolve the healthcare crisis. The profit motive that rules every part of the industry, from the pharma-giants to the HMOs, has got to go. But is there any way a push for this can be expected from a Democratic or Republican candidate for president — tied to the corporations not only through campaign donations, but fundamental class allegiance?

Answer: no way! And that, friends, is why you should not only fight for totally public financing of all election campaigns, but vote socialist in November. John McCain would like you to take “personal responsibility” for your healthcare dilemmas; maybe you should take personal responsibility for ringing in a new system instead.