From: chriswa@microsoft.com (Chris Waldron)
Subject: Clinton REAL supporters
Date: 27 Jul 92 21:18:37 GMT
Organization: Microsoft Corporation
Distribution: soc.culture.african.american

Originally posted on misc.activism.progressive May 1992.


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                Clinton vs. Brown: Who Backs Clinton?
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                          by John B. Judis
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Transcribed by: Elizabeth Dissin <ANSY@CORNELLC.cit.cornell.edu>
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Assessing former California Gov. Jerry Brown's surprisingly good
showing in the March 3 Colorado primary, Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton
said that he agreed with Brown's anti-Washington message.  "The
lobbyists in Washington have given America the shaft," Clinton told
CNN.

Yet no Democratic candidate has more support from Washington lobbyists
than Clinton.

In the Maryland primary, Clinton disdained the more well-to-do voters
in Montgomery county, claiming in an interview that he was not the
candidate of "the rich." Yet no Democratic candidate has received more
support from Wall Street investment bankers and lawyers. Clinton's
Federal Election Commission record of $1,000 contributors reads like a
who's who of Wall Street bankers and Washington lobbyists. If Clinton
already had strong, informed convictions on all the issues important
to Wall Street and K Street, then it wouldn't matter who contributed
to his campaign. But while Clinton knows what he thinks about
education, welfare, and healthcare, Clinton is on much less firm
ground talking about trade, foreign and domestic investment,
U.S.-Japan economic relations, and securities regulations -- issues on
which Wall Street and K Street have very definite and unfortunate
opinions.

These are among the most important issues that the next president will
have to decide, but they aren't front-burner causes that will have to
be publicly debated. they will largely be decided behind the scenes,
where private influence counts. These are some of the issues:

**    What should the next president do about the Mexican free trade
agreement? What kind of labor and environmental safeguards
should he insist upon? The Washington lobbyists who backed the
bill want the agreement signed quickly -- safeguards or not. They are
backing Clinton.

**    What kind of GATT treaty should the next president sign?
Should he go along with proposals favored by U.S. multinationals,
South Korea, and Japan to take anti-dumping cases away from
national governments and put these in the hands of GATT
administrators in Geneva? The lobbyists backing Clinton want this
to happen.


**    What should the president do about the continuing trade deficit
with Japan? Should he keep the Japanese to their agreement to buy
American semiconductors -- opposed by some American
corporations and the Japan lobby in Washington? Should he
continue to pursue dumping cases and the anti-trust investigation
of Japanese keiretsus, or mega-conglomerates? Many of Clinton's
backers have a vested interest in keeping the lid on American
disputes with Japan.

**     Should the next president favor laws requiring foreign
companies to disclose their investments in the U.S.? Should he use
anti-trust laws against foreign companies that create monopolies by
purchasing American companies? The bankers backing Clinton do
not want any surveillance of or restrictions on foreign purchases of
American companies.

**     Should security and tax laws be strengthened to discourage the
use of junk bonds to make leveraged-buyouts of corporations? The
bankers and lawyers backing Clinton do not want any regulations
of LBOs. To make matters worse, Clinton relies on the advice of
several economists and lobbyists who take exactly these positions
on trade and investment issues. As a result, there is reason to fear
that if he were elected president and had to decide on of these
issues, he would, all things being equal, listen to those people who
supported his presidential campaign and who advised him.

          =================================
          C L I N T O N ' S   F U N D E R S
          =================================


Clinton has raised about $7 million, double what his nearest
challenger, former Massachusetts Sen. Paul Tsongas, raised. Of this
amount, the campaign claims that only $1 million came from New
York, but many of the contributors at large Manhattan fundraisers
worked for out-of-town branches of Wall Street firms or had New
Jersey and Connecticut addresses. My estimate, from scanning his
records at the Federal Election Commission, is that Clinton has
received from one-fourth to one-third of his total campaign money
from Wall Street, mostly in the form of the maximum $1,000
contributions from investment bankers and lawyers and their
spouses.

The bankers and lawyers who supervised his fundraising on Wall
Street are in the storm center of debate over foreign investment and
securities regulation. They include:

* Robert Rubin and Kenneth Brody of Goldman, Sachs organized
two fundraising parties for Clinton at which he raised almost $1.5
million. Goldman, Sachs has helped arrange foreign purchase of
American companies. Since 1986, Sumitomo Bank of Japan has been
a major stockholder in Goldman, Sachs, and it is the only American
firm that has been granted permission by the Japanese government
to trade on Tokyo bond market. The firm's officers have a vested
interest in not doing anything that would disturb U.S.-Japanese
relations.

* Bruce Wasserstein of Wasserstein Perella and Co. has helped raise
money for Clinton on Wall Street. Wasserstein Perella is partly
owned by Nomura Securities. The firm has been very active in
selling junk bonds and arranged leveraged buyouts. It has a vested
interest in blocking any new tax and securities regulation.

* Arthur Liman of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton, and Garrison has
also helped raise money for Clinton. Liman has defended both
Michael Milken and Dennis Levine of Drexel Burnham Lambert
against charges they defrauded clients and has assisted corporate
raiders Carl Icahn and Ronald Perlman in takeovers.

If Clinton were to win the presidency, any of these individuals
would have privileged access to the Treasury Department and even
the White House.

          =========================================
          K   S T R E E T   C O N T R I B U T O R S
          =========================================

Clinton received about another fourth of his funds from the lawyer-
lobbyists who work on or around Washington's K Street. His main
fundraisers are Thomas Boggs and Robert Brady of Patton, Boggs
and Blow.

This is one of the largest lobbying firms in Washington. Patton,
Boggs and Blow represents scores of Japanese firms and American
multinationals that have tried to gut American trade laws. While
the firm claims to be aligned with the Democratic party --
Democratic National Committee chair Ron Brown is a partner --
Boggs himself lobbied on behalf of Eastern Airline's Frank Lorenzo
when Lorenzo was trying to destroy the airline's unions. It has also
lobbied for Wall street firms including Bear Stearns and Paine
Webber that have opposed new federal regulations on securities.
Both Boggs and Brady could be expected to use their influence with
Clinton on behalf of their clients.

Clinton's list of K Street contributors includes many lobbyists and
bankers connected with Japanese purchases of American firms,
such as Robert Bruce, the Washington lawyer who represents Sony.
And Clinton has also received money and advice from lobbyists for
Mexican free trade agreement. These include former Carter official
Anne Wexler, the head of the Wexler Group, and Sheldon Cohen,
who represents the government of Mexico. If Clinton were elected
president, he would seek to conclude a Mexican agreement
regardless of who funded or advised him, but these men and
women would have an interest in pressing him forward even if he
could not reach the kind of agreement that would protect American
workers from substantial job loss.

         ===================================
         C L I N T O N ' S   A D V I S O R S
         ===================================

Clinton's inner circle of economic advisors includes Kennedy
School Professor Robert Reich and the staff of the Democratic
Leadership Council, which Clinton chairs. While Reich and the
DLC have both advanced highly original proposals in education
and welfare, they have sided squarely with Wall Street and K Street
on trade and foreign investment issues. Reich, who was a Rhodes
Scholar with Clinton, and was once the leading liberal proponent of
industrial policy, now opposes any effort aimed specifically at
helping American corporations -- from the government-subsidized
semiconductor cartel, SEMATECH, to American laws against
foreign companies dumping their goods below cost on the
American market.

Reich's position is based on a perfectly valid point -- that some
American corporations have moved their manufacturing facilities
offshore, while some European and Japanese corporations now
build their products in the U.S. But Reich vastly overstates the
extent to which companies have lost heir national identity.
American companies continue to be far more likely to do their
research and development here than foreign companies; and
foreign companies from Japan tend to follow a mercantilist strategy
aimed at eliminating their foreign competitors.

Of course, once in office, Clinton could ignore Reich, the DLC and
his Wall Street and K Street contributors. He does have advisors,
such as business consultant Ira Magaziner, who believe that the
U.S. must do what it can to prod its own businesses to make
productive investments. And as president, Clinton would also have
to listen to Democrats in Congress. But as things stand now,
Clinton has put himself in hock to a group of contributors and
advisors whose economic views are anathema to many Democrats --
and also bad for the country.

##################################################################
FROM: Grapevine: Tompkins County's Community Weekly. April 1-7, 1992
ORGINALLY FROM: This story originally appeared in In These Times.
##################################################################

In These Times
1300 W. Belmont
Chicago, IL 60657
(312)472-5700

    [Note: Re "Clinton vs. Brown" -- while Brown, predictably, is by
    now "out of the picture," Independent progressives such as Ron
    Daniels (whose speech was recently posted here) are in the running
    through November and deserve our support -- Harel]



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