Straight From the Heart of Texas.
From the book of, You have got to be kidding me!! Enters, Alonzo Cantu. He will surely school you on the finer tasks of raising money, but first let's get acquainted with the premise of the story.
During the first nine months of this year, Sen. Barack Obama raised just $2,086 for his presidential campaign from people who live in and around this border town of stucco bungalows and weed-covered farm lots, and most candidates raised even less. But Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Democratic front-runner, has already raised more than $640,000 here, and her campaign expects to collect even more.
Okay. How has 640K been raised in a town of stucco bungalows and weed-covered farm lots? Can somebody explain this to me? This is like going into the projects and coming out with a satchel of money, only where did it come from and who is really giving it? Dishwashers for Hillary, anyone?
Clinton's success in this unlikely setting is based almost entirely on her friendship with one man, McAllen developer Alonzo Cantu. A self-made millionaire who once picked grapes on the migratory farm labor circuit, Cantu persuaded more than 300 people in Hidalgo County, where the median household income in 2006 was $28,660, to write checks ranging from $500 to $2,300 to the senator from New York.
Cantu offers a simple explanation for what he's doing for Clinton. "To me, there are two things that will keep us from being ignored," he said. "Money and votes. I think we've shown we can raise money. That will get us attention, or at least get us a seat at the table, get us in the room."
Wow.
A powerful statement.
Better yet this is an, I don't give a damn, what I say, statement.
Yes. It is.
"When Alonzo comes through the door, you want to give to him," said Gerardo J. Reyna, Cantu's brother-in-law. Reyna owns McAllen Carpet & Interiors, a company that provides close to 90 percent of the floor coverings in Cantu-built homes and offices. "The last thing you want to do is get on Alonzo's bad side," he said with a smile. Reyna donated $1,000 to Clinton.
Cantu says he gave his first national political check, for $1,000, to Bill Clinton in his first run for president. Cantu said he has been grateful to Clinton for pushing through Congress the North American Free Trade Agreement over the opposition of organized labor. NAFTA turned this stretch of citrus orchards in the Rio Grande Valley into a fast-growing industrial hub, and it has helped enrich Cantu, who owns hundreds of acres in the region, in addition to his varied business interests.
Folks, this is how politics is done. You grease the palm, and you get what you want. Grateful, to our former president, for pushing through NAFTA. Wow. Shake your head, or roll eyes time.
When Hillary Clinton first ran for the Senate, Cantu began raising money for her. His primary motive, he said, was to ensure that South Texas will not be deprived of federal money, projects or attention if she becomes president. "Understand, I don't want anything," Cantu said. "Just to help South Texas."
There is plenty of need, he points out during an interview conducted as he steers his white Lexus hybrid through Las Milpas, a tumbledown neighborhood four miles north of the border, where stray dogs wander past broken chain-link fences and where residents use aluminum foil to keep the heat out in summer and build their houses on blocks to prevent rainwater from seeping under the doorways in winter.
As I read this story, I thought of another title of a recent diary, "a putrid stench". That is what all this smells like to me. If this is not the prime example of how to buy/purchase access directly to congress, or a potential president, then what is it? Boy, do we need real campaign finance, NOW.
Cantu credits his support for the Clintons and members of Congress, especially local Democratic Rep. Ruben Hinojosa, for the positive changes that have happened in the area. A Washington Post review of 15 years of campaign contributions by Cantu and the 339 donors whose checks he has bundled found more than $1.4 million in contributions to federal candidates and party committees, most of it to Democrats.
The Clinton administration set up a $40 million rural empowerment zone near McAllen that helped encourage business investment. Since NAFTA went into effect in 1994, the population has nearly doubled, and nearly 100 Fortune 500 companies have set up operations to help import goods manufactured in Mexico. That has meant jobs and an improved standard of living.
Improvements? For whom?
Lately, Cantu has been pushing his contacts for help in bringing an interstate highway to McAllen. He has told them about local opposition to the Bush administration's plan to build a border wall along the Rio Grande. And he has asked lawmakers, including Clinton, to block legislation that many believe could hobble the hospital Cantu built in town. This was a driving concern among many of the doctors and other McAllen area medical professionals who wrote more than $145,000 in checks to Clinton.
Ten years ago, those doctors approached Cantu to help finance and build an ambulatory care center on the north end of McAllen out of frustration with the corporate owners of the two existing hospitals in town. They bought land from him, hired his construction firm and got him to put up roughly 20 percent of the money to help them open the Doctors Hospital at Renaissance.
The only problem with the hospital was its ownership model, which gave doctors 80 percent of the stock. That sounded alarms in Congress, which had taken steps in the past to put restrictions on doctor-owned medical facilities out of fears that if doctors share in the cash flow they generate, they will be tempted to conduct unnecessary procedures.
"It's just a channel through which they get kickbacks," said Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.), who inserted language into a larger bill that would force doctor-owned hospitals, such as McAllen's, to restructure. The bill recently passed in the House and awaits action in the Senate.
Kickbacks? Sigh. What is next? Really, what is next?
In an effort to stop the bill, Cantu said, he brought together the doctors and local leaders, and they agreed to try to raise money for Clinton. In addition to making individual contributions bundled by Cantu, the group formed a political action committee, the Border Health PAC, which gave $5,000 to Clinton in July and a total of $25,000 to various members of the Texas congressional delegation. And they traveled to Capitol Hill this fall to meet with several members of Congress, urging them to reject Stark's provision.
What is this? Ummm, want your way, so now you throw around money to basically vote your way. And of course, Clinton, is no comment.
In the larger scheme of things, you, I, we are just not important enough. The power of money is a mother. It is. I guess if all of us could bundle in the millions, we could have direct access to these politicians, but we don't. We get up every day with our loved ones, make a living, hope for decent healthcare, wish for affordable college tuition, and have to deal with jobs that don't care about us, always wonder if our salaries will be cut, if we will have a job or is that being shafted south of the border.
Is this who we are? Is this what we want in the White House? Status-Quo? Business, as usual? Don’t we more deserve than what is being peddled to us?
Lastly, from the infamous Johnny Chung:
"I see the White House is like a subway: You have to put in coins to open gates."
In the end, I know, we, Democrats are better than this.
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