[DEBATE] : Clinton Bucks Trend, Rakes in Cash From Weapons Industry

[Riaz K. Tayob]

  Clinton Bucks Trend, Rakes in Cash From Weapons Industry
     By Leonard Doyle
     The Independent UK

     Friday 19 October 2007

     The US arms industry is backing Hillary Clinton for President and 
has all but abandoned its traditional allies in the Republican party. 
Mrs Clinton has also emerged as Wall Street's favourite. Investment 
bankers have opened their wallets in unprecedented numbers for the New 
York senator over the past three months and, in the process, dumped 
their earlier favourite, Barack Obama.

     Mrs Clinton's wooing of the defence industry is all the more 
remarkable given the frosty relations between Bill Clinton and the 
military during his presidency. An analysis of campaign contributions 
shows senior defence industry employees are pouring money into her war 
chest in the belief that their generosity will be repaid many times over 
with future defence contracts.

     Employees of the top five US arms manufacturers - Lockheed Martin, 
Boeing, Northrop-Grumman, General Dynamics and Raytheon - gave 
Democratic presidential candidates $103,900, with only $86,800 going to 
the Republicans. "The contributions clearly suggest the arms industry 
has reached the conclusion that Democratic prospects for 2008 are very 
good indeed," said Thomas Edsall, an academic at Columbia University in 
New York.

     Republican administrations are by tradition much stronger 
supporters of US armaments programmes and Pentagon spending plans than 
Democratic governments. Relations between the arms industry and Bill 
Clinton soured when he slimmed down the military after the end of the 
Cold War. His wife, however, has been careful not to make the same mistake.

     After her election to the Senate, she became the first New York 
senator on the armed services committee, where she revealed her hawkish 
tendencies by supporting the invasion of Iraq. Although she now favours 
a withdrawal of US troops, her position on Iran is among the most 
warlike of all the candidates - Democrat or Republican.

     This week, she said that, if elected president, she would not rule 
out military strikes to destroy Tehran's nuclear weapons facilities. 
While on the armed services committee, Mrs Clinton has befriended key 
generals and has won the endorsement of General Wesley Clarke, who ran 
Nato's war in Kosovo. A former presidential candidate himself, he is 
spoken of as a potential vice-presidential running mate.

     Mrs Clinton has been a regular visitor to Iraq and Afghanistan and 
is careful to focus her criticisms of the Iraq war on President Bush, 
rather than the military. The arms industry has duly taken note.

     So far, Mrs Clinton has received $52,600 in contributions from 
individual arms industry employees. That is more than half the sum given 
to all Democrats and 60 per cent of the total going to Republican 
candidates. Election fundraising laws ban individuals from donating more 
than $4,600 but contributions are often "bundled" to obtain influence 
over a candidate.

     The arms industry has even deserted the biggest supporter of the 
Iraq war, Senator John McCain, who is also a member of the armed 
services committee and a decorated Vietnam War veteran. He has been only 
$19,200. Weapons-makers are equally unimpressed by the former New York 
mayor Rudolph Giuliani. Despite a campaign built largely around the need 
for an aggressive US military and a determination to stay the course in 
Iraq, he is behind Mrs Clinton in the affections of arms executives. Mr 
Giuliani may be suffering because of his strong association with the 
failed policies of President Bush and the fact he is he is known as a 
social liberal.

     Mrs Clinton's closest competitor in raising cash from the arms 
industry is the former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, who raised 
just $32,000.

     "Arms industry profits are so heavily dependent on government 
contracts that companies in this field want to be sure they do not have 
hostile relations with the White House," added Mr Edsall.

     The industry's strong support for Mrs Clinton indicates that she is 
their firm favourite to win the Democratic nomination in the spring and 
the presidential election in November 2008. In the last presidential 
race, George Bush raised more than $800,000 - twice the sum collected by 
his Democratic rival John Kerry.

     Mr Edsall's analysis of the figures reveals that, over the past 10 
years, the defence industry has favoured Republicans over Democrats by a 
3-2 margin, making Mrs Clinton's position even more remarkable.