Top Bush supporter funds attacks on Kerry's war record
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Homebuilder is longtime force in Texas GOP
By Scott Gold, Los Angeles Times | August 15, 2004
NASSAU BAY, Texas -- Robert J. Perry, the main financier behind the effort to discredit Senator John F. Kerry's military record, is the most prolific political donor in Texas.
A homebuilder who lives lakeside in this Houston suburb, Perry has helped bankroll the widespread success of Republican candidates here, has long-standing ties to many close associates of President Bush, and has contributed to Bush's last four campaigns. According to interviews and campaign documents, he has given a total of more than $5 million to scores of political candidates.
''And the vast majority of those people have never laid eyes on him," said Court Koenning, executive director of the Republican Party in Harris County, which includes the Houston metropolitan area.
Despite the enormous influence of his money, Perry, 71, is reticent and guarded, and remains something of a mystery in Texas. But his largess has now crept onto the national stage.
A group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth launched television ads last week accusing Kerry, a Massachusetts senator and the Democratic presidential nominee, of lying about his military record. A $100,000 check that Perry wrote to the group this year represented about two-thirds of the money in its accounts as of June 30, according to financial documents.
The Bush campaign says it has no ties to the group.
The advertisements, running in the battleground states of Wisconsin, Ohio, and West Virginia, are part of a multimedia campaign questioning Kerry's fitness as a leader and commander in chief. A book written by one of the group's leaders, Houston lawyer John E. O'Neill, is scheduled to be released today.
''Bob Perry is a very generous guy with his political donations," Koenning said. ''His primary interest is good government. . . . Everybody agrees that John Kerry's service to this country is admirable. But if he lied about it, that speaks to his character."
Kerry was awarded three Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star, and a Silver Star for his service in Vietnam. Upon his return, he became a leader of a veterans group that declared the war a mistake. His military service is a cornerstone of his presidential campaign, one his advisers believe contrasts sharply with Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard.
None of the veterans featured in the advertisements served on the river patrol boats Kerry commanded during Vietnam.
Several of Kerry's crewmates have condemned the advertisements, and Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, once a prisoner of war in Vietnam, called them ''dishonest and dishonorable."
''Bob Perry pulls the strings and never gets his hands dirty. But even by his standards, this latest deal is just over the top," said Charles Soechting, chairman of the Texas Democratic Party.
Perry declined to comment through his spokesman, Bill Miller, an Austin political consultant.
Perry has been a political donor for years, working with White House political director Karl Rove during Rove's Texas years, contributing to Texas Governor Rick Perry's rise in politics and giving $20,000 to Bush's two campaigns for governor in the 1990s.
But Perry, no relation to the governor, began increasing his donations in 2000. Today, campaign documents and his representatives confirm that he has given more money to campaigns and political organizations in the past four years than any other Texan. A few of his donations have gone to Democratic candidates, but most have gone to Republicans and conservative causes.
He has given almost $1 million to the Texas Republican Party. He has donated at least $200,000 to Texans for Lawsuit Reform, one of the most successful ''tort reform" organizations in the nation.
In the 2002 election cycle, he also provided about $700,000 for the GOP's effort to dominate Texas politics. That included $165,000 given to Texans for a Republican Majority, an offshoot of US House majority leader Tom DeLay's Americans for a Republican Majority, formed to help conservatives get elected.
The election that year of a slate of DeLay-backed Republicans -- all supported by Perry -- gave the GOP control of the state House for the first time in 130 years. That paved the way for passage of a host of conservative measures, such as abortion restrictions and limits on medical malpractice cases. The GOP also redrew congressional maps for Texas, a move designed to shore up Republican control of Congress.
Perry is largely unknown outside campaign finance databases and a small group of political leaders, shunning social activities often embraced by major donors. Many of the politicians who have received Perry's money say they have never met him. One who has, Texas Agriculture Commissioner Susan Combs, said he wanted to know just one thing before supporting her: ''Are you a straight-talking, straight-shooting person who is going to represent Texas well?"
''I just think he's an unassuming guy," Combs said.
Born in a tiny ranching community in Bosque County, Texas, Perry attended Baylor University and then taught high school for a while, like his father before him. In 1968, he started a home-building business in Houston.
Today, Perry Homes does business across central and eastern Texas. The company's website lists 48 communities in the Houston area alone where the company is building or selling houses, which range from $110,000 to more than $400,000.
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