HIGHTOWER: Three-year-olds for Bush
Those who still cling to the Alice-in-Wonderland fantasy that there's nothing really wrong with America's big-money system for financing our elections need to meet Alexandra and Hannah Wallin. These twin sisters from Utah each gave $1,000 to George W. Bush's presidential campaign last March.So what's wrong with that, you ask -- why make a fuss about $2,000 from two ladies from Utah? Because, at the time these ladies made their contributions, they were three years old. In an op ed piece in USA Today, David Mastio reports that Alexandra and Hannah are granddaughters of Utah multimillionaire John Price. He's a big-time Bush fat cat who has given and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for Bush.On March 24th, Price wrote a $1,000 check to George W. So did his wife. So did two of his children. So did his children's spouses. So did five of his grandchildren. All on the same day -- a "spontaneous" outburst of familial support for George W! Well, Alexandra and Hannah didn't exactly write their checks, since they were only three. Of course, Price was orchestrating all of this, using his own grandchildren as conduits to get around the legal limits of how much a person can give. On the federal filing, where contributors have to list their occupation, Alexandra and Hannah are listed as "students." So far, George W. Bush has received $164,000 from "students."Bush's campaign claims that it returned the $5,000 contributed in the name of Prices five grandchildren after a "routine" review of these student donors. But Price tells a different story -- he says that when reporters started calling him about these kiddie kontributors, he called the Bush lawyers, and only then did they suddenly get scruples and send back the checks.This is Jim Hightower saying ... It's part of the slime of today's politics that politicians literally take money from children.