THE BEST SENATOR MONEY CAN BUY:

Cash and Kerry: The gift: He rails against big donors, but he knows the drill. Just ask Johnny Chung (Michael Isikoff, 2/09/04, Newsweek)

On the campaign trail, Kerry routinely attacks the president for his ties to big-dollar donors. Kerry championed campaign-finance reform, and refused money from corporate or labor political-action committees. But in some ways, he has played the Washington money game as aggressively as the Republicans he scolds. Over the years, reports the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity, Kerry has raised more than $30 million for his Senate campaigns. A good portion has come from industries with an interest in the committees on which Kerry has a seat—including more than $3 million from financial firms (Kerry serves on the Senate Finance Committee). Kerry insists he is meticulous about avoiding any conflicts. "If these interests are giving money in hopes of buying influence with the senator, well, they should save their money because it won't work," says Kerry spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter.

Though he has shunned PAC donations, which are limited to $5,000 apiece, the senator in 2001 formed a fund-raising group called the Citizen Soldier Fund, which brought in more than $1.2 million in unregulated "soft money." Kerry pledged he would limit individual donations to $10,000. But in late 2002, just before new federal laws banning soft money took effect, Kerry quietly lifted the ceiling and took all the cash he could get. In the month before the election, the fund raised nearly $879,000—including $27,500 from wireless telecom firms such as T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon. That same month, Kerry cosponsored a bill to overturn a judge's ruling and permit the wireless firms to bid on billions of dollars' worth of wireless airwaves. Kerry aide Cutter says it's a "stretch" to draw any connection between the two events.

Why did Kerry abandon his own rules about contribution limits? "This was just before the election, and it was clear the Democrats needed all their resources to fight the Bush money machine," Cutter says.

Nice to know he tosses his own ethical standards out the window if he thinks they're inconvenient.

Posted by Orrin Judd at February 2, 2004 3:23 PM