Race Cards and Speech Codes

By Patrick J Buchanan

"Give me a break. This whole thing is the biggest fairy tale I've ever seen."

So said Bill Clinton in New Hampshire of Obama's claim to have been a constant opponent of the war. Clinton cited Obama's voting record, which was the same as Hillary's in his early Senate years.

Yet, for this, the ex-president, designated by Toni Morrison as "our first black president," was charged with playing the race card.Clinton spent days explaining the "fairy tale" remark.Came then the morning of the South Carolina primary, where Barack was rolling up a smashing victory. Bill volunteered: "Jesse Jackson won in South Carolina, twice, in '84 and '88. And he ran a good campaign, and Sen. Obama's running a good campaign."That broke it. Bill Clinton was openly "playing the race card."Now, undoubtedly, Clinton was trying to belittle, to diminish the importance of the South Carolina vote for Obama. But why is it racist to say what Clinton was implying: That, in a Southern state where a huge share of the Democratic vote is African-American, a strong black presidential candidate can be expected to do well?Political history proves this. What is racist about saying it?Aware of the truism, every political analyst was looking closely at the racial breakdown of the South Carolina vote.Last week came Hillary's turn. After her victory in Indiana and loss in North Carolina, which pundits said rang down the curtain on her presidential bid, she advanced an argument candidates have used since primary elections began. "I can win -- and my opponent can't."The argument was made against Goldwater, Nixon, Reagan.In an interview with USA TODAY, Hillary argued that the coalition she has put together would be stronger against John McCain than the coalition Barack has cobbled together.She began by relating an AP article "that found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me.""There's a pattern emerging here," said Hillary. "I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on."This shot Eugene Robinson of The Washington Post into low orbit."As a rationale for why Democratic Party super-delegates should pick her over Obama, it's a slap in the face to the party's most loyal constituency -- African Americans -- and a repudiation of principles the party claims to stand for. Here's what she's really saying to party leaders: There's no way that white people are going to vote for the black guy. Come November, you'll be sorry ..."Clinton implies but doesn't quite come out and say ... that Obama is black -- and that white people who are not wealthy are irredeemably racist."But Hillary was saying no such thing. Describing her coalition, she was implying that Obama's coalition -- a George McGovern-Jesse Jackson combine embracing 90 percent of African-Americans, plus liberals, students and cause people -- has less chance of beating McCain than does she and her more Middle American coalition.Democrats, not liberal Democrats, are the swing votes who decide presidential races. Here Hillary beats Obama three to two or two to one, North and South.Has she no right to make this argument? Can Brother Robinson explain exactly how Hillary can describe her Ohio-Pennsylvania coalition without using the dread word "white"?Some of the reaction to the Clintons, whose once-universal support among African-Americans has crashed, is due to the immense stake black Americans have come to invest in the Obama candidacy. But some of this is something else, something more sinister.Bill and Hillary Clinton are not playing a race card. Rather, the liberal media and some black journalists with sentimental, emotional or ideological investments in Obama are playing the intimidation card.They are setting limits around what may and may not be said about Obama. They are seeking to censor robust adversarial speech where Barack is concerned, by branding as racists "playing the race card" any who make Barack run the same paces as anyone else.The Clintons are today victims of a double standard that has long been employed against conservatives.Even African-Americans critical of Obama are feeling the lash. In Saturday's Washington Post article, "Black Community Is Increasingly Protective of Obama," reporter Darryl Fears writes, "Standing in the path of Obama's campaign has been dangerous" for prominent blacks.Bill and Hillary have lost luster and sustained damage to their reputations because, in the Democrats' universe, such smears stick. The question for Republicans is whether they will let themselves be intimidated, as they too often are, from using legitimate political weapons to defend what they still have.It is thus a sign of trouble ahead that John McCain declared the Rev. Wright off limits and berated the North Carolina GOP for bringing him up. Let your adversaries circumscribe the content of your campaign, and you usually end up losing your campaign.

Benz Speaks! - When ordinary lying isn't enough, you need help!

McCain's Jeremiah Wright?

By FRANK RICH

BORED by those endless replays of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright?

If so, go directly to YouTube, search for “John Hagee Roman Church Hitler,” and be recharged by a fresh jolt of clerical jive.

What you’ll find is a white televangelist, the Rev. John Hagee, lecturing in front of an enormous diorama. Wielding a pointer, he pokes at the image of a woman with Pamela Anderson-sized breasts, her hand raising a golden chalice. The woman is “the Great Whore,” Mr. Hagee explains, and she is drinking “the blood of the Jewish people.” That’s because the Great Whore represents “the Roman Church,” which, in his view, has thirsted for Jewish blood throughout history, from the Crusades to the Holocaust.

Mr. Hagee is not a fringe kook but the pastor of a Texas megachurch. On Feb. 27, he stood with John McCain and

endorsed him over the religious conservatives’ favorite, Mike Huckabee, who was then still in the race.

Are we really to believe that neither Mr. McCain nor his camp knew anything then about Mr. Hagee’s views? This particular YouTube video — far from the only one — was posted on Jan. 1, nearly two months before the Hagee-McCain press conference. Mr. Hagee appears on multiple religious networks, including

twice daily on the largest, Trinity Broadcasting, which reaches 75 million homes. Any 12-year-old with a laptop could have vetted this preacher in 30 seconds, tops.
Since then, Mr. McCain has been shocked to learn that his clerical ally has made many other outrageous statements. Mr. Hagee, it’s true, did not blame the American government for concocting AIDS. But he did say that God created Hurricane Katrina to punish New Orleans for its sins, particularly a scheduled “homosexual parade there on the Monday that Katrina came.”
Mr. Hagee didn’t make that claim in obscure circumstances, either. He broadcast it on one of America’s most widely heard radio programs, “Fresh Air” on NPR, back in September 2006. He reaffirmed it in a radio interview less than two weeks ago. Only after a reporter asked Mr. McCain about this Katrina homily on April 24 did the candidate brand it as “nonsense” and the preacher retract it.

Mr. McCain says he does not endorse any of Mr. Hagee’s calumnies, any more than Barack Obama endorses Mr. Wright’s. But those who try to give Mr. McCain a pass for his embrace of a problematic preacher have a thin case. It boils down to this: Mr. McCain was not a parishioner for 20 years at Mr. Hagee’s church.

That defense implies, incorrectly, that Mr. McCain was a passive recipient of this bigot’s endorsement. In fact, by his own account, Mr. McCain sought out Mr. Hagee, who is perhaps best known for trying to drum up a

pre-emptive “holy war” with Iran. (This preacher’s rantings may tell us more about Mr. McCain’s policy views than Mr. Wright’s tell us about Mr. Obama’s.) Even after Mr. Hagee’s Catholic bashing bubbled up in the mainstream media, Mr. McCain still did not reject and denounce him, as Mr. Obama did an unsolicited endorser, Louis Farrakhan, at the urging of Tim Russert and Hillary Clinton. Mr. McCain instead told George Stephanopoulos two Sundays ago that while he condemns any “anti-anything” remarks by Mr. Hagee, he is still “glad to have his endorsement.”

I wonder if Mr. McCain would have given the same answer had Mr. Stephanopoulos confronted him with the graphic video of the pastor in full “Great Whore” glory. But Mr. McCain didn’t have to fear so rude a transgression. Mr. Hagee’s videos have never had the same circulation on television as Mr. Wright’s. A sonorous white preacher spouting venom just doesn’t have the telegenic zing of a theatrical black man.

Perhaps that’s why virtually no one has rebroadcast the highly relevant prototype for Mr. Wright’s fiery claim that 9/11 was America’s chickens “coming home to roost.” That would be the Sept. 13, 2001,

televised exchange between Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, who blamed the attacks on America’s abortionists, feminists, gays and A.C.L.U. lawyers. (Mr. Wright blamed the attacks on America’s foreign policy.) Had that video re-emerged in the frenzied cable-news rotation, Mr. McCain might have been asked to explain why he no longer calls these preachers “agents of intolerance” and chose to cozy up to Mr. Falwell by speaking at his Liberty University in 2006.
None of this is to say that two wacky white preachers make a Wright right. It is entirely fair for any voter to weigh Mr. Obama’s long relationship with his pastor in assessing his fitness for office. It is also fair to weigh Mr. Obama’s judgment in handling this personal and political crisis as it has repeatedly boiled over. But whatever that verdict, it is disingenuous to pretend that there isn’t a double standard operating here. If we’re to judge black candidates on their most controversial associates — and how quickly, sternly and completely they disown them — we must judge white politicians by the same yardstick.

When Rudy Giuliani, still a viable candidate, successfully courted Pat Robertson for an

endorsement last year, few replayed Mr. Robertson’s greatest past insanities. Among them is his best-selling 1991 tome, “The New World Order,” which peddled some of the same old dark conspiracy theories about “European bankers” (who just happened to be named Warburg, Schiff and Rothschild) that Mr. Farrakhan has trafficked in. Nor was Mr. Giuliani ever seriously pressed to explain why his cronies on the payroll at Giuliani Partners included a priest barred from the ministry by his Long Island diocese in 2002 following allegations of sexual abuse. Much as Mr. Wright officiated at the Obamas’ wedding, so this priest officiated at (one of) Mr. Giuliani’s. Did you even hear about it?

There is not just a double standard for black and white politicians at play in too much of the news media and political establishment, but there is also a glaring double standard for our political parties. The Clintons and Mr. Obama are always held accountable for their racial stands, as they should be, but the elephant in the room of our politics is rarely acknowledged: In the 21st century, the so-called party of Lincoln does not have a single African-American among its collective 247 senators and representatives in Washington. Yes, there are appointees like Clarence Thomas and Condi Rice, but, as

we learned during the Mark Foley scandal, even gay men may hold more G.O.P. positions of power than blacks.

A near half-century after the civil rights acts of the 1960s, this is quite an achievement. Yet the holier-than-thou politicians and pundits on the right passing shrill moral judgment over every Democratic racial skirmish are almost never asked to confront or even acknowledge the racial dysfunction in their own house. In our mainstream political culture, this de facto apartheid is simply accepted as an intractable given, unworthy of notice, and just too embarrassing to mention aloud in polite Beltway company. Those who dare are instantly accused of “political correctness” or “reverse racism.”

An all-white Congressional delegation doesn’t happen by accident. It’s the legacy of race cards that have been dealt since the birth of the Southern strategy in the Nixon era. No one knows this better than Mr. McCain, whose own adopted daughter of color was the subject of

a vicious smear in his party’s South Carolina primary of 2000.

This year Mr. McCain has called for a respectful (i.e., non-race-baiting) campaign and has gone so far as to

criticize (ineffectually) North Carolina’s Republican Party for running a Wright-demonizing ad in that state’s current primary. Mr. McCain has been posing (awkwardly) with black people in his tour of “forgotten” America. Speaking of Katrina in New Orleans, he promised that “never again” would a federal recovery effort be botched on so grand a scale.

This is all surely sincere, and a big improvement over Mitt Romney’s

dreams of his father marching with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Up to a point. Here, too, there’s a double standard. Mr. McCain is graded on a curve because the G.O.P. bar is set so low. But at a time when the latest Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll shows that President Bush is an even greater drag on his popularity than Mr. Wright is on Mr. Obama’s, Mr. McCain’s New Orleans visit is more about the self-interested politics of distancing himself from Mr. Bush than the recalibration of policy.
Mr. McCain took his party’s stingier line on Katrina aid and twice opposed an independent commission to investigate the failed government response. Asked on his tour what should happen to the Ninth Ward now, he called for “a conversation” about whether anyone should “rebuild it, tear it down, you know, whatever it is.” Whatever, whenever, never mind.

For all this primary season’s obsession with the single (and declining) demographic of white working-class men in Rust Belt states, America is changing rapidly across all racial, generational and ethnic lines. The Census Bureau

announced last week that half the country’s population growth since 2000 is due to Hispanics, another group understandably alienated from the G.O.P.
Anyone who does the math knows that America is on track to become a white-minority nation in three to four decades. Yet if there’s any coherent message to be gleaned from the hypocrisy whipped up by Hurricane Jeremiah, it’s that this nation’s perennially promised candid conversation on race has yet to begin.

Frank Rich is a columnist for The New York Times

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Rich

Clinton mailing attacks Obama on guns

By Ben Smith

Hillary Clinton has re-opened her sharp attack on Barack Obama's position on guns, with a mailer in Indiana that seeks to raise questions about him with both supporters and opponents of gun rights.

The mailing -- perhaps the sharpest-edged of Clinton's five negative mail pieces in Indiana -- casts him as a typical politician, saying different things to different audiences. It also revives his damaging comments in San Francisco that small town people cling to guns.

Then, making the harsh case more broadly, the mailer asks: "What does Barack Obama really believe?"

The piece is particularly striking coming from Clinton, who has been seen for most of her career as a firm advocate of gun control, but more recently has emerged -- without dramatically shifting her stance on specific issues -- as a defender of the Second Amendment who fondly recalled being taught to shoot by her grandfather in Scranton.

Ben Smith is a columnist at www.politico.com
e-mail: bsmith@politico. com

General, Ambassador Wave White Flag After Ron Paul's Grilling

Both the electronic and print media made certain that the world knew that Sens. Hillary Clinton and John McCain had questioned Gen. David Petraeus before the Armed Services Committee but totally ignored the blistering by Rep. Ron Paul before the House Committee on Foreign Affair

“Reviewing the presentations by our panel, I have noted with some concern that they seem more focused on justifying a future attack on Iran than reporting on progress in Iraq,” Paul said.

Paul expressed concern about claims that “new enemies” were emerging in Iraq with ties to Iran: “First we were told that the enemy was Saddam Hussein and his Baathist Party. Then we were told the enemy was the ‘bitter-enders’ from Saddam’s former government. Then the prime enemy became al Qaeda in Iraq, a prime focus of the presentation by Amb. Crocker and Gen. Petraeus last September.

Now the two were saying that the new enemies are mysterious ‘Special Groups’ that are said to have spun off from Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army.

“If this phenomenon of constantly emerging enemies bent on destabilizing Iraq is accurate and our presence in Iraq keeps generating new enemies,” he said, “perhaps the problem is the occupation itself. If this is the case, doesn’t it make sense that our departure from Iraq may actually have a stabilizing effect?”

Paul said he suspects that these Iranian-supported “Special Groups” are not the prime enemy. He suggested they are being used to provide an excuse for a U.S. attack on Iran or are meant as justification for a permanent U.S. military presence in Iraq.

“It makes little sense to assert that Iran is funding militias to undermine the Iraqi government.

“The leading political parties of Iraq, the Islamic Dawa Party and the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, have close ties to Iran. Leaders of these parties were in exile in Iran until the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Iranian President [Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is warmly welcomed in Baghdad by Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki. Why would Iran set up militias in the south to destabilize a government with such strong Iranian ties? I find the allegation that Iran just cannot tolerate an elected government next door to be unsatisfying.”

Paul then challenged them to produce “any hard proof ” that the Iranian government is arming groups in Iraq.

Paul: “Why should the American people continue to support a war that was justified by false information, since Saddam Hussein never aggressed against the United States, Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11, and Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction?

“It is said that we must continue the war because we have already sacrificed so much. But what is moral about demanding even more needless sacrifice of human lives merely to save face for the mistakes of invading and occupying Iraq? Doesn’t it seem awfully strange that the Iraqi government we support is an ally of the Iranians who are our declared enemies? Are we not now supporting the Iranians by propping up their allies in Iraq? If (Iraqi Prime Minister) Maliki is our ally and he has ‘diplomatic relations’ with (Iranian President) Ahmadinejad, why can’t we? Why must we continue to provoke Iran, just looking for an excuse to bomb that country? Does our policy in Iraq not guarantee chaos for years to come?

“It is estimated that up to 2,000 Iraqi soldiers refused to fight against al-Sadr’s militia. Why should we not expect many of the 80,000 Sunnis wehave recently armed to someday turn their weapons against us, since they as well as the Mahdi Army detest any and all foreign occupation?

“Is it not true that with the recent surge in violence in March, attacks are now back at the same levels as they were in 2005? Does Iran not have a greater justification to be involved in neighboring Iraq than we do, since it is 6,000 miles from our shores? If China and Russia were occupying Mexico, how would we react? Since no one can define ‘winning the war,’ just who do we expect to surrender? Does this not mean that this war will be endless since the political leaders will not end it—until we go broke?

”Paul said, “I do have one question that there is enough time to answer: In your estimation, does the administration have the authority to bomb Iran without further congressional approval?”

Petraeus: “Uh, congressman, I, uh, I’m the commander for Iraq, and I do not know the answer to that question, and it’s not within my purview.

”Crocker: Er, uhh, congressman, nor is it in mine, er, ahh, uh, I, uhh you know, my job is Iraq, and I’m just not competent to pronounce on, uh, an issue like that.

”Paul: (who must have been wondering if either had ever read the Constitution) “It disturbs me to no end that we cannot get a flat-out “no” on this question.”

Is He One of Us?

By Patrick J. Buchanan

Friday, April 25, 2008

As one looks at the polls, the issues and the candidates, the election of 2008 resembles what poker players call a "lay-down hand.

"Two-thirds of the nation believes the Iraq war a blunder. Sixty-nine percent disapproves of President Bush. Eighty-one percent thinks America is on the wrong course.

Inflation is at 4 percent and rising. Unemployment is 5 percent and rising. Gasoline, heating oil and food prices are soaring. The dollar has lost half its values against the euro. Homes are being foreclosed upon at Depression rates. The stock market is in a swoon. And 3.5 million manufacturing jobs have vanished under Bush.

Hillary and Obama have both raised far more than John McCain.

Democratic turnout in the primaries and caucuses is two and three times what it was for the GOP. The youth, energy and enthusiasm are on the Democratic side. Voter registration is rising dramatically, and the new registrants are almost all Democrats or independents.

Thirty Republican House members are retiring. In the Senate, the big question is whether Democrats will achieve a 60-40 margin to enable them to kill Republican filibusters.

By all odds, Republican retention of the White House should be as imperiled as it was in 1932, when the hapless Herbert Hoover faced FDR.

Yet John McCain, who presides over a disconsolate party many of whose leading lights not only do not love him, they do not like him, is even money to be the next president of the United States.

What explains this?

Answer: Barack Obama, the probable nominee of the Democratic Party -- his cool and pleasant demeanor aside, and his oratorical skills notwithstanding -- is being steadily pushed by his own mistakes, and rivals Hillary Clinton and McCain, outside the social, cultural and ideological mainstream of American politics.

Hillary's victory in Pennsylvania confirmed what Texas, Ohio and Florida hinted at. Barack has not closed the sale with Middle America. Moreover, he may never close the sale.

What is Barack's problem?

Though he has stitched together the McGovern wing of the party -- the anti-war crowd, the cause people, the professoriat -- with the Jesse Jackson wing -- 90 percent of the African-American vote -- he is being systematically pushed out of the heartland of the party, the white working and middle class. And reinforcing the impression in Middle America that Barack is "not one of us" is the core of both the Clinton and Republican strategies. And they are working.I

In Ohio and Pennsylvania, resistance to the probable nominee hardened and calcified among Catholics, ethnics, union and blue-collar voters, even as Barack outspent Hillary two and three to one.

Racism is the reason, wail the pundits. But this is not a reason, it is an excuse. Barack, after all, ran up record totals in virtually all-white Iowa and is favored to win in virtually all-white Oregon.

Moreover, all politics are tribal. There was resistance in rural Pennsylvania to voting for an African-American, but there was also wild enthusiasm for voting for an African-American in Philly, where Hillary -- spouse of "our first black president" -- was getting about the same share of the black vote as Barry Goldwater.

On balance, as Joe Biden undiplomatically blurted out, the fact that Obama is a black man is an extraordinary asset in 2008. It is the reason a junior senator, three years out of the Illinois legislature, is running first for the nomination, and has become the favorite of a national media intoxicated with the idea of a black president.

Barack's problem is social, cultural and ideological.

Increasingly, he is seen not as a man of the middle, but as radical chic, a man of the liberal and leftist elite who confides to closed-door meetings in San Francisco that folks in Pennsylvania cling to guns, Bibles and bigotries as crutches, because they cannot cope in the Global Economy and government has failed them.

He is seen as a man comfortable with friends still proud of the radical role they played planting bombs in the 1960s, a man who feels relaxed about sending his daughters on Sunday to hear the racist rants of an anti-American berserker.

And if your wife, beneficiary of a Princeton-Harvard Law education denied to 99.9 percent of the people, says she cannot recall ever being proud of America before now, folks are naturally going to be suspicious about why you dumped the American flag pin.

On the big issues of 2008 -- amnesty, the hemorrhaging of American jobs, Iraq -- McCain is on the same side as George Bush, whose approval rating is 28 percent. McCain can be defeated on those issues.

But if, with a little help from Hillary, McCain can paint Barack indelibly as a man of the trendy and radical left, he can win. America will have nowhere else to go.

Journalists disagree on whether immigration, Iraq or the economy will be the major issue in 2008. The real issue may be -- and this is what is causing heart palpitations among Democrats -- is Barack Obama one of us, or is he one of them?

Benz Speaks!

Hillary hating hits fast food!

Ron Paul Survives Lies, Manipulation Of Mass Media

By Mark Anderson

A recent article entitled “A Requiem for Ron Paul,” written by Stacy Cowley for Fortune Small Business magazine online, begins:

“Ron Paul’s Friday announcement that his presidential campaign ‘will soonwind down’ removes from the race a quixotic figure whose doomed pursuit of the White House inspired libertarians and free-market purists, including many business owners who loved his message about a nation free from regulatory fetters.

”Asked by AFP why she wrote that Paul had dropped out when he has not, Miss Cowley replied, “I think we stand by what was written,” while claiming that the article was “not a bias against a particular candidate; it’s just a function of how the media operates.

”When reminded that Paul has not actually pulled out like Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney did when they officially quit, she seemed to dodge the matter, while portraying her article as a whole as “a tribute to what he (Paul) was trying to accomplish.” She also told AFP that she put the article together (with two other reporters, just for an average length piece) near deadline, though Miss Cowley said she watched all of Paul’s latest video.

The mainstream media sees Paul as numerically out of the running in terms of delegates. But Paul confirmed he’s still in the race to keep his ideas in the arena (and to be there if McCain falls from grace or if delegates are not bound to McCain in September at the Republican National Convention).

Reporters and editors in the mainstream media want to spin their stories, instead of reporting actual statements and events as they unfold without prejudice. The result is that not enough Americans know about “the other guy” still standing in the GOP field. This deceives the electorate when the nation is in dire straits—and when many who don’t want to vote Democratic also don’t like McCain but generally are not aware there is another choice.

AFP viewed the same video that Miss Cowley and many other mainstream hacks saw, which is Rep. Paul’s latest video statement to supporters posted on ronpaul2008.com. It shows that he has not dropped out of the presidential race. But nearly all media outlets have persistently claimed that he has quit. While Paul does say “victory in the conventional political sense is not available in the presidential race,” he nevertheless clearly remains in the presidential race.

“The campaign for freedom will continue in this new phase—in this we will need financial resources to continue,” he states in a comment that the major media will not touch in its relentless effort to nudge Paul out of the race, much in the way that former Democratic candidate Rep. Dennis Kucinich (Ohio) was forced out of the running when he was not asked by network wonks to take part in a major televised debate. He charged then that the media was making his decisions for him, rather than allowing him to decide for himself whether to remain in the running.

A valuable spinoff of the Paul campaign is exposure of the major media for what it is—an untrustworthy propaganda belt that cannot be believed. This manipulative information ministry lately has hung its hat on Paul’s statement in the video that “the presidential campaign will soon wind down.”

However, the next words out of Paul’s mouth were: “But we do still encourage all effort to gain the maximum number of votes and delegates in all the remaining primaries and to continue the caucus process that’s ongoing in other states by loyal volunteers.”

The big media also has latched onto Paul’s words: “We must remember, elections are short-term efforts. Revolutions are long-term projects.”

Many reports have characterized that video comment as signaling a dignified surrender. However, Paul said on CNN’s American Morning show: “If you’re in a campaign for only gaining power, that’s one thing. If you’re in a campaign to influence ideas and the future of the country, the campaign is never over.”

Some supporters say the Paul campaign is slow in setting the record straight when the media lie about his status. Evening news reports on NBC and other national networks report as if Paul doesn’t exist. It’s just the lackluster McCain on one hand, and Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton on the other.

Paul has remained true to his word that as long as his supporters want him to remain in the presidential running, he will do so—even as McCain remains the media hyped “leader” for the GOP but is vulnerable to mounting scandals and revelations about his counterfeit conservatism and his checkered past.

Besides being listed as a member of the infamous Council on Foreign Relations in the CFR’s 2007 report— putting him in close quarters with the ruling-class establishment that pushes for a U.S. empire and a North American Union—McCain has not earned much heartfelt support from Republican-leaning media pundits (Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, etc) and various longtime GOP fixtures such as evangelical leader James Dobson.

But this GOP clique will not even mention Paul as the Reagan-like figure they claim to be longing for. But, as noted in Newsweek, Paul knew Reagan well, admires and practices some of his philosophy (get rid of the Education Department) and won “The Gipper’s” personal support when seeking election to Congress.

Paul did not want to lose the Republican nomination for his Texas congressional seat, since he wants to continue his revolution. He won that hands down versus a determined opponent. And, as AFP has noted, with that victory in his back pocket, his load is lighter and he is able to stay in the presidential running to at least give old-guard Republican voters a constitutional choice.

Republicans, Paul said on CNN, “have a right to vote for someone that stands for traditional Republican principles.”

In his latest video, Paul also reiterated the idea of having a summer march in Washington to amplify his revolution’s ideas and emphasize its enduring presence on the political scene.

“It looks to me like June 21 would be a good day,” he said, adding, however, that other individuals or groups, instead of the Paul campaign, would have to be the march’s main organizers. He attributed this to legal, logistical and practical reasons. If his march happens, AFP will be there.

As for the other media, who knows?

Mark Anderson can be reached via email at truthhound2@yahoo.com.
(Issue # 12, March 24, 2008)

Video message: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rk_vVaZxTno

Ron Paul Roars In Lone Star State

By Pat Shannan

Famed journalistic curmudgeon H.L. Mencken wrote in The Baltimore Sun nearly a century ago, “Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.” The current presidential (crooked) election primaries demonstrate that the adage still fits snugly with the American voter.

Speaking of the Elvis-like frenzy at a recent Barack Obama rally, Charlotte Allen of The Washington Post said:

“We scream, we swoon. How dumb can we get?” Her Post colleague, Linda Hirshman, bemoaning the fact that “. . . women are split every way they can be. They’re the only bloc not voting their bloc,” further wrote, “American women still aren’t strategic enough to form a meaningful political movement directed at taking power.”

In other words, vote for the woman simply because she’s a woman. Obama can count on deriving most of the black votes for no other reason than he is at least half black.

That’s certainly enough, to them, for him to be the president. This seems to be the most important determining factor for both groups: ”He/she is one of us.”

That’s enough. Would it make any difference even if the two Democratic candidates were Rosie O’Donnell and O.J. Simpson? Probably not.

Clinton and Obama say they want “change.” Really? What have you two frauds done to bring about change since you became senators? You’ve been sitting up there for 10 years between you.

On the Republican side, John McCain is willing to keep troops in Iraq “for a hundred years,” legalize illegal aliens and generally continue to do whatever the existing agenda directs, in order to sell out American sovereignty to the New World Order.

These three traitors are chronicled, day in and day out, on the evening news and the morning newspapers. Yet, while any of them, prior to their recent elevation to “star status” by the media, would have been jubilant to draw 750 people at any speaking engagement, Ron Paul drew a crowd to the capitol steps in Austin, Texas last week estimated by police to be at 7,500. However, unless you were there, that fact would have been difficult to find out.

Certainly, no other newsman told you. So there’s one more reason why Ron Paul must stay in the race and as a Republican, at least until convention time right after Labor Day. He must stay not only to enlighten the American people about his sensible platform, but also so he may be able to continue to expose the fraudulent news media for what they really are: deceivers.

Without the deceptive news media—or with fair and honest reporting—Ron Paul would have already sent John McCain back to the Senate and would already be the all but elected new president. But the media have created the appearance that the American people don’t want Paul to be president, when it is the Republican planners who don’t want him. As the campaign trail lengthens and the revolution expands, it is becoming more and more obvious that Ron Paul is the people’s choice.

A radio commentator said that when George W. Bush took office, the euro could be bought with 82 American cents—the overnight change on your dresser. Now with the trading price at $1.53, that 2001 figure may be doubled before you read this. The American economy is crashing, and the Federal Reserve Note “dollar” is doomed. For the past quarter century or more, monetary realists have pointed out that no nation in the history of this planet has ever survived a paper money scheme, and this one won’t either.

Now we have reached the end of the line. It is now a crisis. Unless the nation’s constitutional monetary system of circulating gold and/or silver coin is restored—and Ron Paul is the only candidate who will do that—then this generation of Americans will witness a crash and depression that will make 1929 look like a Sunday School picnic.

Now, with that in mind, just how many black Americans or female white Americans would really want to see “one of their own” in the White House, if they knew what they were trading for it? Instead of the first woman or first black president, how about we get the first honest president?

The climate of the times demands it. Even if any of the other candidates, upon being inaugurated, decided that a move to an honest monetary system was indeed the right thing to do, he or she would have to appoint Ron Paul secretary of Treasury to carry out the plans because none of the others has a clue how to do it.

One’s knowledge is only as good as one’s information. If people are not aware of the above facts, then they certainly are justified in making their frivolous complaints all summer long about not having any viable candidates. On the other hand, if the multitudes can be made aware that there is one viable candidate out there—a statesman rather than just another lying politician—then not only would the meaningless debates cease but the voter’s decision would be simplified, and the total vote for Ron Paul would be so overwhelming that a computer vote fraud would need to be massive indeed to prevent his election.

This is what begins to happen when an “unknown” and one who many erroneously think (because of news media deception) has already dropped out of the race, draws 7,500 people at a gathering, while the opposition quietly drools in jealousy.

One fraud, Mike Huckabee (who dropped out), the CFR’s anointed one to thwart the Paul campaign with his phony conservatism, recently announced that, as president, he would “do away with the IRS.” Is that plagiarizing a script from Dr. Paul? But “Fakeabee” hasn’t the slightest intention of doing any sort of thing because he has no idea why it should be done. He still thinks the income tax funds something. His is no more than cheap, hollow rhetoric from a deceptive politician.

How can we know this? Because he didn’t mention dismantling the FED. Ron Paul is the only candidate who knows that an income tax—and this is straight out of the Communist Manifesto—is necessary only to control a fiat currency. When governments (or in this case, private bankers) can turn on the printing presses at will, then something else is necessary to vacuum up the excess paper and credit each year to prevent hyper-inflation.

However, the system still loses a little more ground each year and eventually even the “vacuum cleaner” is not enough to handle the problem.

The income tax has no function in a system of circulating gold and/or silver coin. If you have wondered how and why both of these destructive planks surreptitiously became a part of the American system in the same year, 1913, that is your answer. One is no good without the other. Why did the people allow our government to permit an independent organization to run our economy in the first place? It was corruption from the start.

President Ron Paul would likely destroy the IRS the benign way: by pardoning every person in federal prison who is there because of a phony tax conviction and stopping all future prosecutions by doing the same thing the morning following any other convictions.

Meanwhile, Americans detest tax increases, and 10-term Congressman Ron Paul has never voted for a tax increase.

As a physician, he has delivered over 4,000 babies and is yet to meet the first mother whose pregnancy was so endangered that she required an abortion. Is it any wonder that he is “pro life?”

A few American communities are finally passing laws to deport illegal aliens, but Ron Paul would send them all home posthaste and then build a fence across the southern border to keep them out. It would cost far less than the financing of “foreign entanglements”.

Guarding the borders of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California would not present any manpower problem, because President Ron Paul would bring home the thousands of troops now tormenting the peoples of Iraq and Afghanistan.

“A nation without secure borders is no nation at all,” says he, who, incidentally, will never support these wars or any other war “declared” by a president instead of the constitutionally mandated Congress.

And if these Bush/Cheney wars are going so well, how come Ron Paul gets more votes and donations from military personnel than all of the other candidates combined? President Paul would do away with government “snoopervision” edicts such as the misnamed “Patriot Act,” which was a giant step toward a police state and had nothing to do with stopping international terrorists.

Who can think of any reason to vote for anyone else? The answer to is: no one, if they know the facts. Ron Paul would be the choice for president in November, if the people were allowed to learn the facts.

Pat Shannan is the assistant editor of American Free Press.
(Issue # 11, March 17, 2008)

Ozymandias / Hillarymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed. And on the pedestal these words appear:`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair! 'Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,The lone and level sands stretch far away.
- - Percy Bysshe Shelley


I met a pollster from an antique land, Who said--"Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand, one in Texas...., one near Canton, Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose brow, and wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The electorate that mocked them, and the press that fed; And on the pedestal, these words appear: My name is Hillarymandias, Look on my resume and campaign fundraising, ye fellow Democrats, and despair! Nothing else remains. Round the decay Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away. Heh.
- - Tom Maguire
http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2008/02/hillarymandias.html

Who is business betting on in 2008

By Nina Easton,

Fortune Washington bureau chief
June 26 2007: 6:28 PM EDT
(Fortune Magazine) -- One of Hillary Clinton's most important courtships began early last year, around a formal dinner table at Georgetown's Four Seasons Hotel. Her targets were Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack and his wife, Christy. Mack was already active politically - but on behalf of Clinton's political opponents. A Bush "Ranger," he had raised at least $200,000 for the President's reelection bid and was one of the most prominent business names on GOP donor lists. At one time his name had circulated as a potential Bush Treasury Secretary.
But these are strangely fluid political times, with long-held alliances shifting under the weight of an unpopular President, an unpopular war and no obvious White House heir on either side.
Morgan Stanley (Charts, Fortune 500) chief administrative officer Thomas Nides, a former Clinton trade official and one of the Democratic Party's more astute strategists, understood the possibilities better than most. That's why he had invited the Macks to a fundraiser for Clinton's Senate reelection at his Washington home - and then completed the evening by taking the trio to dinner at the Four Seasons.

The subject of a Clinton presidential bid never came up that night - except in Nides's whirling brain. He knew that the prospect of persuading his Republican boss to support a Clinton presidential bid was a long shot.

But he also appreciated the importance of trying. Adding such a prominent GOP executive to the Clinton roster would counteract business fears that the former First Lady is a big-government, big-spending, big-taxing liberal. "It would say to the business community, 'It's safe to swim here,'" Nides recalled.

The conversation that night ranged widely, but always returned to one subject: health-care reform. John Mack chairs the board of trustees at New York-Presbyterian Hospital. Christy Mack, the daughter of a doctor, helped found the Bravewell Collaborative to promote health care that treats "the whole person, not just the disease."

Hillary Clinton was on familiar territory - and managed to charm the couple not only with her "intelligence and educated responses," as Christy Mack recalls, but also with her one-on-one charisma. "You have these preconceived ideas about people you see in the public eye," says Christy. "But we were extremely impressed with her ability to connect with every single person. She was an amazing listener, with tremendous warmth."

The relationship could have ended there - a New York Senator engaging her local constituents. But early this year Clinton upped the ante with a phone call to the Morgan Stanley CEO, asking him to support her presidential bid. When he demurred, she asked for a meeting. Once again - this time over coffee - John and Christy Mack found themselves enticed. When Mack returned to his office, he told Nides he was ready to commit. "John, you can wait, you don't have to commit yet," Nides responded. "No," Mack replied, "early support is better support." Days later Mack picked up the phone and sealed the deal. Clinton, Nides recalls, "put the time in."

Multiply that effort many times over, and you can understand why the safe to swim signs are sprouting up all over Clinton Inc. Yet she is not the only Democrat to achieve surprising success in a realm traditionally taken for granted by Republicans. Her leading Democratic opponent, Barack Obama, has made forays into Wall Street and Hollywood to nab business support. He, too, has found admirers among top Republicans, most notably John Canning Jr., CEO of Chicago private-equity firm Madison Dearborn.

For their part, top GOP candidates like Rudy Giuliani, John McCain and Mitt Romney have lined up a small army of pinstriped pitchmen. But what's different this time is that CEOs are up for grabs on both sides. A Fortune survey of where business leaders are lining up in the 2008 race, based on dozens of interviews with top executives, reveals a concerted push by Democratic candidates to secure the blessing of big business while they continue to take their swipes at corporate America on behalf of the little guy.

Even at this early stage of the primary race, the business endorsements of Clinton alone rival - in size, scope and prestige the list of CEOs publicly supporting the Kerry-Edwards ticket in the 2004 general election.

The more than 150 top executives who have raised money for Clinton represent such brand names as Anheuser-Busch (Charts, Fortune 500), Comcast (Charts), Estée Lauder, Palm (Charts), Sun Microsystems (Charts, Fortune 500) and Qualcomm (Charts, Fortune 500).

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."

A difficult war tests loyalties among business leaders, just as it does among other voters, who increasingly identify themselves as Democrats. But Iraq is only one factor behind this year's wide-open race for business support. With the scandals of the early part of the decade behind them, corporate leaders are once again emerging as opinion leaders - not only speaking out on such issues as health care, taxes and the environment, but calling for government action.

"This has been an important period for businesses of all sizes," Clinton told Fortune. "They really can't control health-care costs." And Clinton's Senate tenure has been a significant antidote to her controversial stint as a First Lady proposing health-care reform, which critics decried as an attempt to nationalize medicine. "There has been a real opportunity to know me and work with me," she says, "and to develop personal friendships."

Not to be discounted is that corporate America likes to bet on winners. Coming on the heels of the Democratic takeover of Congress, the party has a real shot at winning the White House. For Republican candidates, a sour political environment is only the beginning of the battle.
With several strong candidates and no clear front-runner, a business community that largely united behind George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004 is now more fractured, with most major Bush donors still sitting on the sidelines. "Even in 2000, Bush was the presumptive nominee," notes longtime GOP fundraiser and Thayer Capital chairman Fred Malek. "Signing up with Bush was a no-brainer."

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.

Longtime Republican Harry Sloan, chief of MGM Studios, told Fortune he had been approached by Obama and Clinton, as well as supporters of second-tier candidates Christopher Dodd and Joseph Biden. But he's sticking with McCain, whom he calls "the most principled political leader of our generation."

Still, Sloan notes that McCain is a more difficult sell than in his 2000 run, when he even drew admirers from liberal-dominated Hollywood. Those days are over. "Because of the Iraq war and John's position on the war right now, the same people aren't prepared to fully support him," says Sloan. "And many haven't given money for that reason."

Despite Democratic inroads into the business community, the three top declared GOP candidates have long careers that give them connections to name-brand players. Former Massachusetts Governor Romney has used his deep roots in business to enlist the likes of Miami Dolphins owner H. Wayne Huizenga and Utah Jazz owner Larry Miller, as well as Staples founder Tom Sternberg.

In Silicon Valley he counts on eBay CEO Meg Whitman and Next Solutions CEO Doug Wilson, while onetime colleagues like Bain & Co. founder William Bain, his former boss, stand by their man. "It's the strength of his leadership ability, his get-it-done attitude," says Marriott CEO Bill Marriott.

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.

McCain has won the backing of FedEx chief Fred Smith, Cisco CEO John Chambers, New York Stock Exchange chief John Thain, and Boston Scientific's Pete Nicholas. In contrast to the grass-roots conservative voters McCain is trying to woo in his primary battle, top executives applaud the Senator's willingness to work with Democrats on issues like immigration reform.

This year's scramble for the business seal of approval can make it hard for candidates to pin down a loyal commitment. Blackstone Group CEO Stephen Schwarzman and Amgen CEO Kevin Sharer have written checks to McCain - and to Romney. Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg has donated to John McCain - but also to Clinton. Among Democrats, too, looks can be deceiving. Much attention was lavished on hedge funder Paul Tudor Jones's splashy May 19 fundraiser for Obama at his waterfront mansion in Greenwich, Conn. Less noticed was the $2,300 check he wrote to Giuliani just two months earlier.

David Geffen invited presidential prospect Michael Bloomberg to his Beverly Hills home June 19 for an intimate dinner - but he's formally supporting Obama. "I'd say 75 percent of the donor community in Hollywood has given to multiple candidates," says Andy Spahn, longtime political advisor to top entertainment figures. "For these people $2,300 [the legal cap on donations] is not a stretch."

Regardless of their personal feelings, many CEOs avoid publicly aligning themselves with a candidate, concerned about offending boards, employees and customers.

"If you're a consumer products company and you get your head up too high, you're going to alienate some customers," notes Malek. "Even if you produce industrial products - there are customers who are Democratic and customers who are Republican."

But FedEx CEO Smith insists that his personal support for McCain aligns with his company's interest in reducing America's dependence on foreign oil and maintaining a robust free-trade stance. "Those would be two of the issues that loom very large in this election that would be directly on point with FedEx's business interests," he told Fortune. Likewise, supporters of Democratic candidates say their companies would benefit from federal action to reform the health-care system.

When I told a leading GOP fundraiser the news that John Mack had thrown his weight behind Clinton, she was stunned. "You're kidding me, right?" (Actually she expressed the sentiment more graphically.) Says GOP veteran Malek, a McCain supporter: "It concerns me that any solid-thinking top businessperson would go the Democratic route, given the party's liberal ideology."

Clinton's critics say a close reading of her Senate record should give business leaders pause. The Chamber of Commerce estimated that she voted with that group's position 45.8 percent of the time; for the National Association of Manufacturers, it was 16 percent in the last Congress. Still, notes a conservative investment banker, "I don't think Hillary Clinton scares people the way she did in the '90s." And that gives her an opening with former opponents.

Jeffrey Volk, global head of Citigroup's agency and trust business, was with his wife and freshman daughter at Tulane University when Hurricane Katrina struck. (Like others interviewed for this story, Volk stressed that his political views are personal and not his firm's.) The family was stranded in a hotel room, fearful - like others - as power faltered, water levels rose and chaos engulfed New Orleans. His many efforts to reach Washington officials ended in a black hole of automated voicemail.

That was when this lifelong Republican called his home-state Senator's office. The Clinton staffer who took his case wasn't able to produce an airlift for stranded New Yorkers and others, as Volk requested, but he did call the family several times a day to check on them. "When I was in harm's way, her office was there to help me and my family," Volk says.

When he returned to New York, Volk made it a point to meet Clinton at a small event at the home of a mutual friend in White Plains. He went there simply to thank her, but at the end of a two-hour policy discussion, Volk - who once helped Ronald Reagan craft an economic platform - had decided he wanted to support her.

What converted him: "Her knowledge of issues, the tradeoffs you have to make for a pragmatic policy, her grasp of details on subjects ranging from fiscal policy to taxes and trade."

But Clinton doesn't always go over with business executives - especially outside Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and Hollywood. Obama Democrats insist that Clinton remains a polarizing figure, which gives their candidate - with his "let's all get along" theme book - his own opening in the business community.

Obama's inclusive style is often an easier sell to corporate leaders looking for someone with whom they can do business. Obama supporters say that while Clinton is relying on establishment Democratic players, they've tapped into a new pool of business leaders who weren't politically active before now. "That pool of people is vastly larger" than the usual suspects, says Boston Provident partner Orin Kramer, a leading Democratic figure in New Jersey.

Wall Street in particular began leaning Democratic in the 2006 congressional election, making it a ripe target for Obama and Clinton. Their GOP foes are bemused by the trend. "A lot of hedge fund managers and others who are younger don't remember when you had bad tax policy and how powerful the negative effects can be on the economy," says investor James Higgins, co-founder of the conservative Monday Meeting in Manhattan.

Indeed, on tax policy especially, most business leaders are out of sync with Democrats, who want to limit the Bush tax cuts, penalize companies that build plants overseas, and increase taxes on private equity and tax funds. Asked about this, Clinton's GOP business supporters say they have other priorities. Volk wants to see the federal budget balanced. Robinson wants healthcare and education policies that will improve America's competitiveness. Hillary Clinton says simply, "It's important not to have a tax discussion separate from [deciding] what are our goals."

For Clinton, there is an underlying tension between the candidate who can do business with business - and the candidate who must curry support from the party's left wing to win the nomination.

At a speech before grass-roots activists in Washington on June 20, she was booed by antiwar activists but applauded when she took corporate America to task. Deriding the country's "highest concentration of wealth ... since 1929," she declared,"Let's start holding corporate America responsible, make them pay their fair share again. Enough with the corporate welfare! Enough with the golden parachutes! And enough with the tax incentives for companies to ship jobs overseas. We have to make sure there is not a single benefit they would get for doing that."
Five hours later she was on the phone with Fortune - and her tone was far more measured. Asked how she could balance an appeal to business with that sharp rhetoric, the Senator answered, "To me it's about getting back into balance. It's the search for that balance that's appealing to a lot of business leaders. They know I'm trying to figure out how we can have shared prosperity." As any CEO can tell you, it ain't as easy as it sounds.

Hillary Rodham Clinton

Through persistence and patience, Clinton has assembled what is probably the broadest CEO support among the candidates, ranging from Wall Street to Hollywood.

John Mack CEO, Morgan Stanley Winning over the longtime Republican sent a signal about Clinton's clout on Wall Street.

Sheryl Sandberg VP, global online sales, Google "I was always hoping she'd run for President. She's uniquely qualified."

Steve Rattner Managing principal, Quadrangle Group "I've been a longtime supporter of the Clintons. I knew I'd end up in her camp."

Steven Spielberg Co-founder, DreamWorks The mogul co-hosted a fundraiser at the home of News Corp. president Peter Chernin.

Haim Saban CEO, Saban Capital Group "I endorsed Hillary before Hillary decided to endorse herself. I'm on a mission."

James D. Robinson III General partner, RRE Ventures The former AmEx CEO likes her "breadth of experience, especially on the international level."

Rudolph Giuliani

The former New York City mayor has built a team of fundraisers he has known since early in his career, but his support on Wall Street suffers a bit from lingering feelings that he was overzealous as a prosecutor.

Carl Icahn Billionaire investor and activist "Republicans have to pick the candidate most likely to beat Hillary Clinton. Rudy is the one."

T. Boone Pickens Founder, BP Capital hedge fund "Every time they rang the bell, the guy was there. He finished every fight."

Paul Singer Founder, Elliott Assoc. hedge fund "I believe the mayor is the strongest and most conservative candidate in the race."

Bill Simon Venture capitalist "When you're the mayor of New York, you do have a foreign policy."

James Turley CEO, Ernst & Young Besides creating a business alliance with Giuliani in 2002, Turley is a fundraiser.

Randy Levine President, New York Yankees "He did an outstanding job during and after 9/11. Overtime he's become a great leader."

Barack Obama

The Illinois Senator has a solid base of business support in Chicago but has also fared well with Hollywood media moguls and has aggressively moved into Clinton's turf among East Coast financiers.

Oprah Winfrey Founder, Harpo Productions Her endorsement of Obama was the first ever forthe billionaire media powerhouse.

Penny Pritzker Chairman, Classic Residence by Hyatt "I've watched him dialogue with CEOs. Heads are nodding, people are excited."

David Geffen Co-founder, DreamWorks He endorsed Obama - but first took a public swipe at his old friends, the Clintons.

Jeffrey Katzenberg Co-founder, DreamWorks "His sense of right and wrong, what's just and fair, is what's needed for these times."

James S. Crown President, Henry Crown & Co. The investor says his family, one of Chicago's wealthiest, "is solidly behind" the candidate.

Orin Kramer General partner, Boston Provident "We're tapping into people in business who haven't been involved in the process."

Mitt Romney

Romney has accumulated an impressive business lineup just by courting the "low-hanging fruit," as Bill Marriott puts it, of friends and associates from private equity, Boston, and the Mormon community.
Bill Marriott CEO, Marriott International Tapping his deep Rolodex in the hotel industry. "People like what he did with Massachusetts."

David Neeleman Founder and former CEO, JetBlue Trying to bring Mitt into the middle ground. "I think he's moderate in a lot of ways."

Bill Bain Founder, Bain & Co. Über-consultant and longtime mentor. "Mitt understands why companies decide to invest."

Meg Whitman CEO, eBay Serves as campaign chair. "Democrat or Republican, he would hire the right people."

Wayne Huizenga Owner, Miami Dolphins Courted by Rudy, but likes Mitt's "conservative principles, like smaller government."

Bill Harrison Former CEO, J.P. Morgan Chase Hosts Greenwich, Conn., and New York City events. "Mitt connects unbelievably well with people."

John Edwards

As a former trial lawyer campaigning on a pro-union platform, Edwards is not the go-to guy for big business. Yet he has important allies, including many at a hedge fund where he once consulted.

James Sinegal Co-founder and CEO, Costco stores The lifelong Democrat threw his support behind Edwards after hearing his plans on health care.

Wesley Edens CEO, Fortress Investment Group About 100 of the secretive financier's employees have donated to Edwards's campaign.

Leo Hindery Chairman, InterMed Advisors Edwards has made the former cable-TV magnate his senior economic advisor.

Howard Schultz Chairman, Starbucks The coffee mogul hosted a fundraiser at his Seattle home for about 150 potential donors.

Andy Rappaport Venture capitalist, August Capital "I believe that if the 2004 ticket had been reversed, John Kerry would be Vice President today."

Jason Flom CEO, Capitol Music Group Flom has sought support for Edwards within the music industry by hosting fundraisers.

John McCain

The Senator from Arizona has gone head-to-head with the Senator from New York to win Wall Street support. A key ally is Lew Eisenberg, former chief of the Port Authority and powerful Bush fundraiser.

Fred Smith Founder and CEO, FedEx "He does what he thinks is right, The most current example is the immigration issue."

James B.Lee Jr. Chairman, J.P. Morgan Chase Investment Bank This captain of Wal I Street is a national co-chair of the campaign.

David Pottruck CEO, Red Eagle Ventures "He's not afraid to do the hard things. He has the character and the energy and commitment."

James Chambers CEO, Cisco Systems "He understands the value that technology contributes to economic prosperity."

John Thain CEO, NYSE Euronext Another campaign co-chair, he's working with Lee to make inroads on Clinton's turf.

Harry Sloan CEO, MGM movie studio "I made the decision to support him before there were any other candidates."

Full disclosure: Writer Nina Easton's husband is a consultant to the McCain campaign.

Reporter associates: Telis Demos, Joan L. Levinstein, Jenny Mero and Christopher Tkaczyk
From the July 9, 2007 issue



Find this article at: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/07/09/100121742/index.htm