{"id":2256,"date":"2004-08-04T10:13:20","date_gmt":"2004-08-04T15:13:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/2256.html"},"modified":"2004-08-04T10:13:20","modified_gmt":"2004-08-04T15:13:20","slug":"corporate-america-moves-further-away-from-bush","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/corporate-america-moves-further-away-from-bush\/","title":{"rendered":"Corporate America moves further away from Bush"},"content":{"rendered":"

John Kerry will do something today that George Bush would never do: Brag about support from Big Business. In a campaign in which the Dems are more-than-anxious to go after traditional GOP voters, this makes a lot of sense. It may even have the desired effect.<\/p>\n

The Wall Street Journal reported in June<\/a> that what was once a “solid wall of business support” for Bush is slowly crumbling — and Kerry is taking advantage of it. Wealthy business leaders, most of whom have been backing Republican presidential candidates for years, have apparently decided Bush’s fiscal irresponsibility, record budget deficits, and poor stewardship of international affairs are enough to warrant a change.<\/p>\n

Among Kerry supporters is Eric Best, a managing director at Morgan Stanley, who says Mr. Bush’s tax cuts go too far at the expense of mounting deficits. “I was raised as a fiscal conservative, and I think [Bush’s] fiscal policy is scary,” he says.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The trick for Kerry was convincing Corporate America that this Massachusetts Dem offered a serious and credible alternative to a failed president. Today the WSJ offers something of a follow-up<\/a> to note just how successful Kerry’s outreach has been.<\/p>\n

Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry has persuaded scores of corporate executives to go public with endorsements to prove his moderate appeal and suggest cracks in President Bush’s base of business support.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n


\nWhile the list features hundreds of corporate supporters from across the country, it’s hard not to enjoy the support Kerry’s receiving from David Bonderman, founder and managing partner of the Fort Worth, Texas, investment firm Texas Pacific Group, who supported Bush for president in 2000 and earlier for Texas governor.<\/p>\n

In an interview from a chartered boat off Italy where he is vacationing, Mr. Bonderman said: “George is a really good guy personally. But his policies are really terrible. And he had an opportunity to bring the country together — which was his MO in Texas. But for reasons only his psychiatrist would know, he’s chosen to do just the opposite as president. He’s turning out to be the worst president since Millard Fillmore — and that’s probably an insult to Millard Fillmore.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That’s right; this guy is a former Bush supporter from Texas<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Another one who jumped out at me is former Bush backer Owsley Brown II, chairman of Brown-Forman Corp., which makers Jack Daniel’s. In fact, Brown is interrupting his vacation to be in Davenport alongside Kerry.<\/p>\n

“It’s of course not something someone does lightly,” he said, “…and certainly not for someone like me — a registered Republican all my life. But it seems pretty clear that our choice last time” — Mr. Bush — “has not been such a good one for the United States. So I am looking for the kind of leadership that Sen. Kerry will bring, certainly in fiscal matters.” Mr. Brown, who also supported Mr. Bush’s father, says the Iraq war was based on “naive assumptions” about the world “and only the facts that suited” the president and his administration about Saddam Hussein’s regime and unfound weapons of mass destruction.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Let’s be clear: Bush will enjoy the overwhelming support of Corporate America, both politically and financially. Almost 75% of all Bush contributions come from the business community, while less than half of Kerry’s contributions do. Fine.<\/p>\n

That said, there are two points to this information. One, Bush’s support among one of the most consistent pieces of the GOP coalition — Big Business — is weakening, which represents yet another sign of the president’s maleable base of support. Two, John Kerry is demonstrating that he’s not just some wild-eyed liberal who is hostile to economic growth; he’s earned the respect and support of some of Corporate America’s biggest players.<\/p>\n

Wall Street cares less about partisanship and more about profit. It wants a strong business market, international stability and credibility, and a presidential administration that gets America working again. It’s little wonder business leaders are increasingly turning to Kerry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John Kerry will do something today that George Bush would never do: Brag about support from Big Business. In a campaign in which the Dems are more-than-anxious to go after traditional GOP voters, this makes a lot of sense. It may even have the desired effect. The Wall Street Journal reported in June that what […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2256\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}