10 February 2004, Sam Parry, ConsortiumNews.com
One of the new rules of modern campaign coverage is to tailor a script to each candidate and to squeeze developments into that script whatever the facts really are. In 2000, George W. Bush was the blunt straight-shooter and Al Gore was the delusional liar, even if journalists had to change Gore’s words (as with the Love Canal case, "invented the Internet," etc.) and downplay examples of Bush deceptions.
A new case in point for Campaign 2004 is the portrayal of Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts as a captive of Washington "special interests." This theme has been gaining momentum even though Kerry ranks as a leader in the Senate in supporting environmental causes and is best known for his investigations into foreign policy scandals, such as drug trafficking by CIA-backed Nicaraguan “contra” rebels, not for pushing through corporate-favored legislation.
So what gives? Is this a fair charge against the Democratic front-runner or is it another case of the news media crafting a misleading theme?
"The Kerry as captive" theme crystallized with a breathless Washington Post page-one article on Jan. 31, which reported that, in the last 15 years, Kerry had received more campaign contributions from "paid lobbyists" than any other senator, a total of $638,358 since 1989.
The article, written by Jim VandeHei and entitled "Kerry Leads in Lobby Money: Anti-Special-Interest Campaign Contrasts With Funding," cited figures from the Center for Responsive Politics, a non-profit that collects and refines data that candidates file with the Federal Election Commission.
The Post report was quickly cited by Kerry’s Democratic rivals and became grist for a new anti-Kerry commercial by the Republican National Committee. It was reprised as a top story on NBC’s evening news on the eve of the Wisconsin primary.
But what has received almost no attention is how misleading the key elements of the story are.
The Post article, for instance, doesn’t identify the lobbyists. The Center for Responsive Politics, which was cited in the Post story, acknowledges that its data doesn’t distinguish who the lobbyists are, what they lobby for or even whether they directly lobbied Kerry on any specific policy issues.
This lack of clarity means that some of these lobbyists may be registered to lobby Congress on public-interest issues, such as the environment, abortion rights or other legislation that most Americans would tend to categorize as public-interest advocacy, not "special interest" influence peddling.
A larger fundamental flaw in the Post article is that by concentrating only on lobbyists, the Post’s tally leaves out most donations from contributors that fit the common definition of "special interests" in the minds of most people. Employees of Halliburton or Enron, for instance, would not be included in the Post’s narrow definition.
Corporate executives, who often bundle tens of thousands of dollars for a single campaign, were excluded from the Post’s tabulation because they are listed on FEC forms as executives, not lobbyists. So, perversely, the definition of "special interests" used by the Post in its piece would include an environmental lobbyist who opposes oil drilling in the Arctic wilderness and a lobbyist from a pro-choice group, while leaving out someone like Enron’s Ken Lay.
To put this omission into perspective, George Bush’s lifetime campaign contributions from Enron-- $736,800-- eclipses by nearly $100,000 Kerry’s donations from all lobbyists over these 15 years.
FULL ARTICLE: Kerry & the 'Special Interest' Hit Piece
