Candidates Feel the Lure of Celebrity Cash

[TomClash]

Source: New York Times

They make their fortunes engineering the world’s biggest deals or making hearts swoon in movie houses and concert halls. But inside their storied prewar East Side town houses and palatial downtown lofts, members of the city’s power elite are grappling with the same question as the rest of the nation: Who should next occupy the White House?

Of course, the rivers of money that flow from Wall Street and Hollywood mean they can offer far more than a single vote.

Through the end of last year, the metropolitan region contributed more than $80 million to presidential aspirants. New York’s singers, actors, literary lights and plutocrats wrote checks across party lines, in some cases covering their bets by running the table of candidates.

“You come here because there is more money on any stretch of Park Avenue from 59th Street to 96th Street than there is in most countries in the world,” said the political consultant Hank Sheinkopf. “In two hours you can assemble people in one room of one apartment from every major sector of the economy and the cultural world, all of whom have interest in what occurs in government.”

Contributions from donors in finance, insurance and real estate accounted for nearly half of the money presidential candidates collected through September in the metropolitan region, according to an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan campaign finance research group based in Washington.



Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/03/nyregion/03donate.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion&oref=slogin

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The odious representatives of finance, real estate and insurance (FIRE) give to everyone. Real Estate and Insurance are the worst businesses in New York - they make Wall Street look like leftists.

[Doctor_J]

1. It is kind of discouraging

how much money is being wasted on campaigning. We would fix the health care problem in this country with just the money being spent trying to get into office. When Marx predicted the fall of capitalism, this is probably what he had in mind.

[TomClash]

2. Notice how little Edwards got from FIRE

A token amount. And he's out of the race.

It's so discouraging it makes you think a call to arms is the only way out. But Ghandi was right, "an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."