The troubling specter of candidates courting business leaders

this article, written for fortune magazine and re-printed in cnn money, is looking at which candidate might be friendlier to business interests, and puts the spotlight on hillary clinton who, it says, is making a number of advances to business leaders and who has landed several major endorsements...

why do i find this troubling...? for years and years, our country has pretty much been ruled by business interests, a situation that has been pushed to the extreme in the bush administration... i'm not anti-business, but the enormous contributions businesses and business-related groups can and do make to political candidates dwarf those made by individual citizens... and, given that the campaign universe remains all about money, candidates naturally gravitate to those interests in order to raise enough of it to stand even a chance of being elected, with the perfectly understandable result that, once elected, a politician will feel obligated to return the favor... it's a system that virtually INSURES the common good of the people and the nation as a whole will not receive first, or even second or third, priority...

The more than 150 top executives who have raised money for Clinton represent such brand names as Anheuser-Busch, Comcast, Estée Lauder, Palm, Sun Microsystems and Qualcomm. Venture capitalist James D. Robinson III, the former CEO of American Express and a longtime Republican, told Fortune he now supports Clinton for President, citing her "breadth of experience, especially on the international level, which is critical for going forward."

[...]

Business leaders can provide added heft to a candidate's fundraising efforts - the major candidates are expected to raise a record $1.4 billion in this race - but they also help a candidate's image branding. Democrat John Edwards, who offers sharp-edged populism, is a tougher sell to business. But Clinton and Obama view CEO support as a key part of their crossover appeal.

A roster of business endorsements "says to voters that you'll be strong on the economy," says Clinton campaign chair Terry McAuliffe. Most of the top-tier candidates - Republican and Democrat - have made pilgrimages to the Business Roundtable's offices in Washington to pitch some 60 CEOs at a time.

i think it's important to know who is giving how much and to whom... while hillary's list of backers represents a laundry list of some of the country's most rich and powerful, rudy giuliani's list is positively frightening...

Giuliani's Wall Street support isn't as broad as that of fellow New Yorker Clinton, but he has culled important business support in Texas and elsewhere. Billionaire hedge fund manager T. Boone Pickens has raised nearly $1 million for the candidate. "In New York he cleaned up the city, ran Mafia convictions, then [handled] 9/11," Pickens says. Giuliani also has the support of Texas Rangers owner Tom Hicks, billionaire investor Sid Bass, and superstar activist Carl Icahn.

pickens, bass, and icahn are some of the most predatory, devious, unscrupulous, capitalist plunderers on the planet, and their endorsement of giuliani tells me more about giuliani than i ever wanted to know...

as much as i try to avoid reading the business press, it pays - pardon the pun - to stay informed, particularly in this, among the most crucial presidential election seasons in the history of the united states...

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