10.27.08
Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates Personally Fund Republican
‘Excerpt from Lincoln’s famous speech, noted for the phrase “a house divided against itself cannot stand,” when accepting the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate from Illinois in June of 1858.’
Several hours ago we brought together several links which show a relationship between Microsoft and John McCain. This friendship is probably best known for the lack or regulation and absence of antitrust action.
We have already covered — quite extensively in fact — Microsoft's influence on the government using lobbyists. There are other posts that explain deregulation [1, 2], but they are less relevant to the following news.
Today’s news may suggest that not only Microsoft, being a very large corporation, influences the government using campaign contributions — a subtle form of (legalised) ‘bribery’. That’s just how the broken system operates. It’s more interesting to find that out Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates are opening up their wallets to personally support a Republican.
Redmond’s own Republican fights uphill battle for re-election
[...]
One important Microsoft employee seems favorably inclined: Steve Ballmer donated the maximum amount of $2,300 to Reichert’s campaign in November 2007 and again in June 2008.
It seems as if not all Microsoft employees are sold, however. According to OpenSecrets.org, an independent campaign finance tracking site, 22 Microsoft employees from the state of Washington donated $34,200 to Reichert this election cycle. Comparatively, Burner received $116,969 from 134 Washington-based Microsoft employees.
As for the 8th district’s most famous resident? Bill Gates donated to both Reichert and Burner.
It’s all about money and favours. In such an ill state of affairs, no wonder the whole system is collapsing (along with Microsoft). Perhaps — be it wishful thinking or a matter of inevitability — a better regulatory system will rise from the ashes. █
“Did you know that there are more than 34,750 registered lobbyists in Washington, D.C., for just 435 representatives and 100 senators? That’s 64 lobbyists for each congressperson.”
–CIO.com
Needs Sunlight said,
October 28, 2008 at 10:56 am
The MSFT movement has been rather flagrantly testing its muscle against more nation-states than just the US. However, in this case since M$ also owns the voting machines, why not also the politicians. Oh, wait. M$ already bought them long ago by hiring lobbying to very large sums.