The Presidential Pipeline

The Pultizer Prize-winning and yet still oddly underappreciated Toledo Blade
ran a penetrating series this week on how specific Bush fundraisers
have seen their investments in the cadidate reap profitable policies.
It's worth a read as a primer on exactly how corporate executives and
lobbyists buy influence legally ... and sometimes not-so-legally.

For
example, Lonnie "Bo" Pilgrim is chairman of Texas-based Pilgrim's
Pride, the country's second biggest poultry processor, and a Bush
"Pioneer" (meaning he has raised over $100,000 for Bush. He freely
admits he asked the president directly for a favor in 2002. And quite a
favor it was: Pilgrim asked Bush to speak to Russian president Vladimir
Putin about dropping that country's ban on chickens imported from the
United States. Shortly thereafter, Russia opened its markets to
American chickens. Pilgrim's company has also collected $60 million in
federal monies since Bush took office for selling his birds to the
Department of Agriculture.

And
then there's MBNA, the massive credit-card company which eclipsed Enron
last year as the largest corporate patron of Bush's entire political
career. The company regularly let the Bush campaign use its corporate
jet. It was MBNA's generosity in Bush's campaigns that may have
persuaded the president to push through a revamping of the nation's
personal bankruptcy laws. The result: $380 million a year annually
toward MBNA's bottom line. (See CorpWatch coverage of MBNA here.)

Read the whole series:

1. Presidential Pipeline: Bush's Top Fund-Raisers See Spoils of Victory
2. Presidential Pipeline: Bush Money Network Rooted in Florida, Texas
3. Presidential Pipeline: Kerry Backers Still Feel Sting of Losing 2004 Presidential Contest
   

• 175 Corporate Influence on the Elections