56 New Rainmakers Join Bush Fundraising Stampede
April 27, 2004
56 New Rainmakers Join Bush Fundraising Stampede
WhiteHouseForSale.org Web Site Features Searchable Database With Information About 511 Rangers and Pioneers Identified by Bush-Cheney Campaign
WASHINGTON, D.C. – President Bush’s unprecedented fundraising haul of $187.5 million has been bolstered by 511 major contributors, including 56 newly disclosed by the campaign. This elite group of “bundlers” has collected at least $79.4 million, according to WhiteHouseForSale.org.
The Bush campaign now has 208 Rangers, those fundraisers who bundle at least $200,000 in individual contributions, and 303 Pioneers, who each have brought in at least $100,000. At a Ranger-and Pioneer-only retreat in Georgia last month, Bush campaign finance chairman Mercer Reynolds reportedly announced that 25 Rangers have roped in at least $500,000. But despite repeated requests from Public Citizen, the campaign has declined to name these super-bundlers.
WhiteHouseForSale.org, a Web site created by Public Citizen in conjunction with Texans for Public Justice to track contributors to the 2004 presidential campaigns, has updated its searchable database with the names of the new Rangers and Pioneers, along with their home states, employers and occupations. The site also details how much Bush has raised from key industries.
Notables newly named as Pioneers include Robert J. O’Connell, CEO of MassMutual insurance; W. Henson Moore, head of the American Forest and Paper Association; and Ziad Ojakli, who left his job at the White House in January to become Ford’s top lobbyist. Two more CEOs from the electric utility industry – which has greatly benefited from the Bush administration’s gutting of clean air laws – were added to the Pioneer list. They are Jim Rogers of Cinergy and David McClanahan of Centerpoint Energy. Another 21 previously identified Pioneers from 2004 have been elevated to Ranger status.
Texas added 12 Pioneers in March for a total of 62 bundlers, reclaiming its title as the state with the most big-money Bush backers. The Washington, D.C., metro area – which feted Bush at his penultimate fundraiser on March 31 – is home to 17 new Pioneers. A chart showing the state-by-state breakdown of Bush’s Rangers and Pioneers is available at WhiteHouseForSale.org.
“Corporate America has bought a stake in a second Bush term,” said Public Citizen President Joan Claybrook. “This list of names offers 500 reasons to fix the presidential public financing system.”
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