Buying of the President: Website a 'one-stop source' of eyebrow- raising info for 2008 election Mike Sheehan

Published: Thursday January 10, 2008



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Print This Email This An independent research organization has unveiled a website that examines "how big money and special interests influence the path to the Oval Office." The Center for Public Integrity states in a press release obtained by RAW STORY that an award-winning team of researchers and journalists has built "The Buying of the President 2008" on its behalf. It is the latest in a continuing series that began in the 1996 election year. The site, www.buyingofthepresident.org, is described as "a one-stop source of information about the 2008 election, featuring profiles of the candidates, their donors, and advisers, as well as the latest fundraising news." An executive director for the Center further states that the website "is a quintessential must-read for journalists, policy makers, and political enthusiasts alike who want to broaden their curiosity and pursuit of the purse strings behind presidential campaigns." One feature of "Buying of the President," entitled "The Auction Blog," focuses on how money is shaping the '08 White House race, the release notes. The site also boasts interviews with dozens of presidential candidates, campaign strategists, consultants and other notable figures; among the names dropped are such political luminaries as George McGovern, Bob Dole, Michael Dukakis, Geraldine Ferraro, Carol Moseley Braun and Ted Kennedy. The Center was founded in 1989 by reporter and former '60 Minutes' staffer Charles Lewis to investigate corruption in the nation's capital. It has come under fire from some critics who charge that funding for its various projects originates from wealthy liberal activists like George Soros, but the criticism is tempered by praise from such icons of American journalism and scholarship as Walter Cronkite, Bill Moyers, and the late Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., who described the Center as "an indispensable truth-teller in a treacherous time."



