Kerry Unveils Endorsements From More Than 200 Corporate Leaders
Aug. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry released a list of more than 200 executives who support him, including Oracle Corp. President Charles Phillips, in a bid to show he's a better choice to run the economy than President George W. Bush.
Five executives were scheduled to join Kerry in Davenport, Iowa, today, at what the campaign called an ``economic summit.'' In addition to Phillips, they are Owsley Brown, chief executive of Brown-Forman Corp.; Peter Chernin, chief operating officer of News Corp.; Charles Gifford, chairman of Bank of America Corp.; and Penny Pritzker, president of Pritzker Realty Group.
The spate of endorsements will boost Kerry's argument that he is a Democrat who reaches out to business. Republicans, with more traditional distaste for government regulation, often outscore Democrats in fundraising among corporate executives.
``John Kerry has good plans to restore fiscal discipline and repair our relationships with the world,'' Brown said in a statement released by the campaign. ``We should not be running up huge national bills without the foresight to see how we will pay them off,'' he said. Brown-Forman's products include Jack Daniel's whiskey and Lenox china.
Costco's Sinegal
On the list of 204 current and former executives is Costco Wholesale Corp. president and chief executive Jim Sinegal, a Democrat who says Bush's $1.7 trillion in tax cuts unfairly benefits the wealthy.
``From record deficits to exploding health-care costs, the Bush administration's policies have undermined the strength of the American economy and made American businesses less competitive,'' said Sinegal, 68, who heads the largest U.S. warehouse-club chain.
Kerry, 60, said he and running mate John Edwards, 51, are determined to create ``a business climate that helps companies succeed and create good paying jobs right here in America.''
Of the 204 people on the list, 67 are said to currently be chief executives. It includes some corporate leaders whose support for Kerry, and for Democrats, was already well known, such as Lee Iacocca, former chairman of Chrysler Corp. He endorsed Kerry in June.
Other executives include Tom Freston, 58, co-president and co-chief operating officer at Viacom Inc., the third-largest U.S. media company, and Bill Hambrecht, 68, founder, chairman and CEO of W.R. Hambrecht, a San Francisco-based investment bank. Hambrecht in December gave $2,000 to the presidential campaign of Kerry's rival, Howard Dean.
AIG SunAmerica's Broad
Eli Broad, 71, chairman of AIG SunAmerica Inc. is also endorsing Kerry. Broad, 70th on this year's Forbes magazine list of billionaires with estimated assets of $5.8 billion, in June criticized Bush for ``running these huge deficits in recent years.''
Sarah Bianchi, Kerry's policy director, said the executives were drawn to the campaign because they are concerned about the federal budget deficit, rising health-care costs and -- as frequent travelers -- America's reputation around the world.
So far Bush has received five times as many campaign donations from chief executives of the biggest U.S. companies. In a campaign-trail coincidence, Bush will also pay a visit to Davenport today, a few hours after Kerry's event.
An after-hours call to the Bush campaign's press line was not immediately returned.
Bush Donations
Fifty-two chief executives from Russell 1000 Index companies had donated money to Kerry's campaign by last month, compared with 280 who had given to Bush's re-election bid, according to figures compiled by PoliticalMoneyLine, a nonpartisan group based in Washington.
Bush has won financial backing from the CEOs of nine of the top 10 U.S. companies ranked by market capitalization, including Intel Corp. CEO Craig Barrett, 64. Pfizer Inc. CEO Hank McKinnell and American International Group Inc. CEO Maurice Greenberg, 79, each have raised at least $200,000 for Bush.
Three key Kerry supporters in the business community helped assemble the endorsements for the Democrat, the campaign said. They are Steven Rattner, managing principal of Quadrangle Group; Roger Altman, co-founder of Evercore Partners, an investment and advisory firm; and Blair Effron, vice chairman of UBS Investment Bank.
``This level of business support is unusual for a Democratic nominee and validates the extent to which Kerry is seen as a centrist and a reliable leader,'' Altman, 58, a former U.S. deputy Treasury secretary, said in an interview. Kerry is proposing to reinstate federal budget controls that Bush abandoned, leading to a record deficit of $445 billion for this fiscal year, Altman said.
Lifelong Republicans
Effron, in an interview, said two-thirds of those on the list had never before taken a visible role in a political campaign. Some on the list are lifelong Republicans, he said, declining to name them.
``I would hope this will encourage other business leaders the campaign has been talking to, to come out over time for John Kerry,'' Effron said. He said Americans who are outside the business world might say, ``I don't know much about the economy, but if these guys like what Kerry is proposing, he must be OK.''
Today's economic summit comes on the sixth day of Kerry's post-convention bus tour across the U.S., with a particular focus on the competitive states likely to decide the Nov. 2 election.
Former Vice President Al Gore, the Democratic presidential nominee in 2000, defeated Bush in Iowa by about 4,000 votes four years ago.
Campaigning yesterday in Wisconsin, Kerry said the Bush White House lacks fiscal discipline and said he would slash ``corporate welfare'' and subsidies to ``high-income corporate farmers'' to reduce the deficit and help balance the federal budget.
Bush says last year's tax cuts helped the economy add 1.3 million jobs in the past six months. Kerry says the added jobs pay, on average, $9,000 less a year than those that have been lost. |
