February 4, 2005 9:43 AM
The man who was going to "terminate" the special interests is breaking records in raising money from special interests! Including nearly half a million dollars from Fox News Channel parent company News Corp USA. $26 million in 2004, and he's already vowed to raise $50 million for his special election ballot initiatives.
Larry Noble, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics: "It's masterful. One of the things Arnold Schwarzenegger has done very well is to declare everybody else's big donors as special interests and his as interested in good government."
Who does Schwarzenegger consider a special interest?? NURSES! Yes. He's going to "kick their butts."
And who's standing up to this? Robert Greenwald -- my boss, and the director of Outfoxed, Uncovered, etc. He just did a 60 second commercial gratis with the help of all volunteers to let real nurses have a voice. The California Nurses Association (that evil special interest) liked it so much they put $100K into an ad buy to run it throughout the state and on A&E's broadcast of their Arnold movie.
Watch it here in Quicktime.
Schwarzenegger got $450K from Fox News Channel's parent (02.04.2005)
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Aaron:
Apparently, no one cares about this Schwarzenegger post.
Being a Californian, I do have something to say about the nurses issue. The whole controversy is because the nurses union pushed through legislation in the CA legislature that would require all hospitals to have 1 nurse for every 5 patience (I just made up that number, but it's something like that). There is already a law on the books like that, the new law just reduced the ratio. Basically, hospitals would have to hire more nurses to run the same hospital thus increasing healthcare costs.
In reality, the idea is a nice one but with healthcare costs the way they are, and obviously no nurse crisis going on in CA, there is no need for this legislation. I agree whole-heartedly with The Govenator for vetoing this legislation and coming out against this type of special interest pandering by the legislature.
And btw, long before the nurses union did an ad buy, there have been tons of ads, paid for by I'm not sure who, THANKING The Govenator for "enacting common sense" in CA. haha. I have no numbers to back it up, but I'd be pretty surprised if you did an unbias poll and found a majority of Californians going against The Govenator on this one... Just my two cents...
Sun Feb 6 2005 7:54 AM
Tom from Madison:
I''m not blaming Arnold. He's a politico who'll take $ from the deepest pockets. But this does show what kind of operation Fox News is running.
There is a huge conflict of interest with News Corp being involved in raising money for Schwartzenegger's side. Viewers need to remember this story EVERY SINGLE TIME FOX NEWS REPORTS A STORY INVOLVING AHNOLD!
How can Fox continue to claim be "fair and balanced" when they're parent is backing one side with millions of dollars? The "real journalism" claim looking real phony.
Sun Feb 6 2005 9:20 AM
Jim, do you know of any other politicians who have been given money by News Corp USA? And do you know of any cases of other media corporations donating money to politicians?
Sun Feb 6 2005 1:39 PM
That ad by the CNA is damning and effective. Californians ousted Gray Davis and replaced him with a Republican Gray Davis. Instead of taking money from labor and Indian gaming companies, he's taking money from big corporations. Same problem - corruption of the political system.
My hide is still thoroughly chapped that Gray Davis got blamed for Pete Wilson's mind-blowingly stupid privatization scheme.
I like the train of thought by Tom and Red, though. It seems strange for a major "unbiased" media company to give money to a politician. Fox should be called on this every day. Just make them keep answering the question of how exactly they can be unbiased when they support the Republican Party with cash donations.
Sun Feb 6 2005 10:46 PM
Aaron:
Paul~
Maybe it's because I did not follow politics nearly as much back when Pete Wilson was govenor of CA, but would you mind expanding on his "mind-blowingly stupid privatization scheme". What scheme was it and how did it effect Grey Davis?
Mon Feb 7 2005 4:14 PM
I meant "mind-blowingly stupid deregulation scheme".
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=pete+wilson+deregulation&btnG=Search
(Click my name for the link.)
Mon Feb 7 2005 5:23 PM
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