Corporate cash behind '08 debates

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By Jennifer Haberkorn

The presidential debates, one of the most potentially significant events of the 2008 campaign, are being brought to you, in part, by the very companies that the participants say they want to keep out of politics.

Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama have spent much of their time railing against the control of Washington by special interest groups and lobbyists, but some of those same groups are now spending millions of dollars to bring the presidential face-off to the public.

Anheuser-Busch Cos. Inc., the International Bottled Water Association and Hewlett-Packard-owned Electronic Data Systems are among the private firms and organizations sponsoring the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD), which hosts the forums every four years.

The CPD, which the candidates say they have no control over, declined to disclose how much its sponsors have contributed.

This year, the CPD planned to host three debates between the presidential candidates and one with the vice-presidential candidates. But the first presidential debate, scheduled for Friday night, is in serious doubt because of the flurry of congressional activity on the economic crisis. The debates are to be held in Oxford, Miss.; St. Louis; Nashville, Tenn.; and Hempstead, N.Y.

Critics say the presidential and vice-presidential debates are yet another way that corporate and special-interest money flows directly into politics, despite laws that try to restrict corporate donations to campaign coffers and other venues.

"When you make a contribution, you're making a contribution to an organization created by and controlled by the [Republican National Committee] and the [Democratic National Committee]. You're essentially hitting two birds with one stone," said George Farah, executive director of Open Debates, a Washington group that wants to reform the debate process.

The CPD has been running the debates since 1987. The group has charity status and says it is nonpartisan, while critics say it's bipartisan because it was set up by the Republican and Democratic national committees and is run by former heads of those groups.

Open Debates argues that a contribution to the CPD is just a masked donation to the parties and that some of the CPD donors are also frequent lobbyists, proving that they are interested in political influence. The sponsors have already spent $3.6 million on federal lobbying over the first six months of the year, according to a search of congressional lobbying reports.

Anheuser-Busch Cos. Inc. is among CPD's longest financial sponsors.