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Technology Stocks : How high will Microsoft fly? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: t2 who wrote (24129)	6/14/1999 5:11:00 PM
From: RTev	Respond to of 74651

I think a lot of MSFT investors probably don't like the anti-trust case and are becoming Republican supporters. I'm sure some of that is happening. It's easy to make anything into a political issue and this will be an issue in a few scattered districts. In Washington, the state's Republican senator, Slade Gorton (of the fish family), is doing a good job of making himself into the defender of Microsoft on this case. Gorton is up for election in 2000. In past elections, he's done only moderately well in the district where the campus is located but will probably do far better in that district next year because of this ploy. But even that's ironic. Gorton built his political career on a successful antitrust suit against major league baseball. He argued the case when he was state attorney general. He would probably have retired from elective politics to a lucrative law career were it not for the antitrust laws. It's impossible to know for sure, but this case would probably have been brought in any administration, Democratic or Republican. Recall that Netscape was able to hire both Bob Dole and Robert Bork -- the Reagan administration antitrust guru -- to lobby congress and the DOJ to file the case. We've gone over it several times on this thread, but it's still often forgotten that the political pressure on the DOJ to file this case came mostly from Republicans in Congress -- from Hatch, from Montana's very conservative Conrad Burns, and from others. But now it's merely a case. It is in the courts. It's being heard by a judge who passed the conservative "litmus test" with flying colors and was appointed by Ronald Ray-gunz [oh, I just can't resist]. But it is, in the end, a legal issue now and not a political issue. It will be decided on its factual and legal merits, and that's what is important right now.