Posted on 07/08/2004 12:50:38 PM PDT by BushisTheMan
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Many of the biggest Boston 2004 donors are huge Boston presences, in addition to being Democratic Party benefactors.
That list includes Fidelity Investments, FleetBoston Financial, John Hancock Financial Services, Liberty Mutual, Raytheon Corp., and State Street Corp., all of which have given at least $1 million to the host committee, in addition to at least $20,000 in PAC and soft money donations to Democrats in recent years.
Smaller convention donors include locally prominent developers who often have projects requiring city approval, including Equity Office Properties Trust, Millennium Properties, Spaulding & Slye Colliers, Suffolk Construction, Cashman Construction, and Shawmut Design and Construction.
Big donations have also flowed from large companies with no strong Boston ties. AT&T, which gave $1.6 million to Democratic PACs and in soft-money funds in the 2002 election cycle, pledged $500,000 to the convention host committee. Coca-Cola and DaimlerChrysler each donated at least $250,000 in cash or services, and both companies have been equally generous with other Democratic Party funds in recent years, according to the report.
In addition, nine pharmaceutical and healthcare companies gave donations totaling $4.1 million, including Amgen, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Pfizer, Merck, and Novartis. Drug companies have been carefully monitoring Mayor Thomas M. Menino's moves of late, as he launches a pilot program to import prescription drugs from Canada.
Senator Edward M. Kennedy is the top-ranking Democrat on the Senate committee that oversees health care, a situation that the report's authors said raises questions about his role in fund-raising. A Kennedy spokesman denied the possibility of donations to the host committee influencing the senator's policy decisions.
''Absolutely none whatsoever," said David Smith, the spokesman. He added that Kennedy was careful not to ask for donations from any companies with legislation affecting them before his committee.
Still, the report points out that the host committee's biggest fund-raisers have deep political connections to the Democratic Party and the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Senator John F. Kerry. Initial fund-raising was spearheaded by Menino and Kennedy, both veteran Democratic officeholders who are serving as national cochairmen of Kerry's campaign, and Alan Leventhal of Beacon Capital Partners, a longtime donor and fund-raiser for the Democratic Party and national Democratic candidates.
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(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
Perhaps Teddy boy needs to be investigated...
ditto here dude, ditto here :-(
Glad I'm not using Fidelity Investments anymore....
And liberals love to claim that Republicans are in corporate America's pockets?
Hypocrites.
I'd be very interested to know if the drug companies are even-handed in their giving. It would be very telling if they lean towards the democRATs. Remember the criticism about the republican drug bill for not negotiating a price schedule? Well, why would the drug companies support the RAT side unless maybe a fixed price schedule turns out to be in the drug companies' best interests? Maybe protection from the pressures of the free market? A price high enough to provide a tolerable payback while low enough to discourage competitors? If not that aspect, then what? Expect the media to explore the whys and wherefores, NOT!
It looks like I will have to look at moving my investments. Did not realize they were in the dims pockets. ;-(
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