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Morning News

Election 2000: Can Sizable Political Contributions Save Microsoft?

Aired June 12, 2000 - 9:21 a.m. ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: It's time now for our Monday morning look at politics. The common theme today is money, and lots of it.

CNN senior political analyst Bill Schneider joins us from Washington with his latest call on political winners and losers.

Bill, good morning to you.

WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Good morning.

Let's start with the winner, John Corzine of New Jersey. What, did this guy pay you even to give him an up arrow?

SCHNEIDER: Well, look: He spent $35 million in last week's New Jersey Senate primary.

KAGAN: That is incredible -- of his own money.

SCHNEIDER: That's a lot of money. And it's an all-time record for a Senate race, and it's only the primary. And by the way, he won. The question is, did his spending subvert the will of the people? Well, you know, maybe not, because his opponent was former Governor Jim Florio, who had raised taxes, gotten thrown out of office after one term, and nearly destroyed the Democratic Party. Florio started this race out ahead because he was much better known. So you could argue that Corzine used his money to buy name recognition and really give Democrats a choice.

KAGAN: Well, as an example that money can't always buy you love, there's your down arrow for Bill Gates this week.

SCHNEIDER: Well, how can this guy be a loser? I mean, he's worth $55 to $80 billion. With money like that, you could probably declare yourself a country and join the U.N.

Now, Washington does like money, and Gates' company Microsoft has given over $2 million to candidates in this year's election, divided evenly between Democrats and Republicans. But Washington also likes to cut rich guys down to size, which is what happened to Gates. In a judgment worthy of King Solomon, a federal judge ordered Microsoft cut in half because of antitrust violations.

Now, can all those political contributions save Microsoft? It was interesting that neither George W. Bush nor Al Gore had any comment on the Microsoft case. They said, well, it's still before the courts. You know what? That didn't seem to stop them in the matter of Elian Gonzalez.

KAGAN: That is true.

And your twist this week has to do with money, the Senate and campaign finance reform.

SCHNEIDER: Well, Daryn, we saw a double twist on the issue of campaign finance reform. On Thursday, to everybody's surprise, the Senate voted to tighten campaign finance laws for the first time since 1993. It passed a law requiring stealth groups that pay for campaign ads to disclose where the money came from. Eight Republicans who are up for reelection voted for it, and some of them are against banning soft money, so that for voting for this disclosure requirement might have give them political cover. The very next day, the House voted to defeat a similar measure with some members claiming it didn't go far enough.

It's going to come up again, but reformers are asking: Are measures like this, limited measures, really a way to advance the cause of campaign finance reform, or do they just give members cover to kill it?

KAGAN: Interesting question to end things on this week. Bill Schneider, thanks for joining us.

SCHNEIDER: Sure.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com

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