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PRESS RELEASE LaRouche Leads Democratic Presidential Candidates Click here for a printable PDF version. |
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The April 15 filings of the Democratic Presidential candidates with the Federal Election Commission (FEC), show that Democratic Presidential pre-candidate Lyndon LaRouche is first among all the candidates in the number of individual contributions recorded by the FEC. LaRouche is also first in the dollar amount of "un-itemized contributions," which represents money given by persons whose cumulative contributions are less than $200.
By official FEC figures, LaRouche had 7834 individual contributions, of those who have given cumulatively, $200 or more, as compared to 6257 for John Kerry, 5582 for John Edwards, 4090 for Howard Dean, and 2744 for Gephardt. As to the dollar amount of un-itemized contributions, LaRouche had $1,325,061 -- far above Kerry's $407,299, Edwards' $242,745, Dean's $786,237, and Gephardt's $179,046. (See Table 2) In addition, by FEC reports, LaRouche ranks fourth among the ten candidates in total money raised, with $3.7 million, behind Sen. John. Kerry (Mass.), Sen. John Edwards (N.C.), and Rep. Dick Gephardt (Mo.)--all serving members of Congress. He has outraised Sen. Joe Lieberman--the Democratic Party's candidate for Vice President in 2000--former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, and Sen. Bob Graham (Fla.), and dwarfed the fundraising of Rep. Dennis Kucinich (Ohio), and former Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun (Ill.). New York Rev. Al Sharpton's report is not yet available. Note that a substantial amount of Kerry's and Gephardt's funds were transferred from previous campaigns. (See Table 1) What these official figures show is that the Democratic National Committee-ordered exclusion of Lyndon LaRouche from candidate forums and debates is a blatant political fix, which ignores the most objective criteria of candidate support available--the amount of money raised, and the base of contributors. LaRouche's number of individual reported contributions over $200, and his total dollar amount from smaller contributors, is the indisputably strongest measure of popular support available. The major media, led by the Washington Post, whose stated editorial policy is never to cover LaRouche except to slander him, has reported the April 15 filing by lying by omission--ignoring the story of how LaRouche, the anti-war opponent of the “empire” faction, has outraised Lieberman and five others. The information was publicly available on the FEC's website, www.fec.gov, under “press background.” For its part, the LaRouche campaign has announced that through March 31, 2023, there are 18,079 individuals who have contributed to the campaign committee, LaRouche in 2004. The number of a candidate's contributors is viewed as a leading indicator of grassroots, versus establishment, support. Of course, LaRouche's large grassroots support is nothing new: In the 1980s, LaRouche candidates running for Congress and local office regularly won between 15-30% of the vote. On March 18, 1986, two LaRouche associates won the Democratic primaries in Illinois for lieutenant governor and secretary of state, which prompted demands by Henry Kissinger and others that LaRouche be stopped by investigations and prosecutions. Pollster J. Michael McKeon, who had predicted the LaRouche victory in Illinois, and was then working for the late reactionary Daniel Patrick Moynihan, told EIR on June 24, 1986, “LaRouche has about a 25% core vote through the country.” ‘Debates' Without LaRouche? So now comes the spectacle of the Lilliputians from the Democratic National Committee (DNC), ignoring the world financial blowout and the coup against the Presidency by the Cheney empire faction, and frantically trying to tie down the world statesman and intellectual giant LaRouche to prevent his participation in debates. LaRouche's inclusion would explode the debates, bring in reality and solutions, and force the real Presidential campaign which the United States desperately needs to dump the policy of the Nazi-like chicken-hawks. On Saturday, May 3, ABC News will televise a 90-minute debate of Democratic Presidential candidates in South Carolina, moderated by former Clinton aide, George Stephanopoulos. LaRouche has not yet been included, despite his campaign's demand. The debate will be aired in early primary states, and on May 4, highlights will be shown on ABC's “This Week,” which Stephanopoulos hosts, and C-SPAN will rebroadcast it on cable in its entirety. The Washington Post on April 21 names nine candidates who will be included; as the tables show, several have support which is minuscule, compared to LaRouche's. Prominent Democrats in South Carolina are urging the state party to include LaRouche, but the party has not yet agreed. During the 2000 campaign, Don Fowler, former state party chair and later DNC chair, created during his reign a special rule to exclude LaRouche, using the same argument used in the racist exclusion of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party convention delegates in the 1960s: The Democratic Party is a private club, and can include whom it wishes--reality be damned. This, while out of the other side of their mouths, the same Democrats proclaim themselves “the party of inclusion.” Enter the LaRouche Youth The LaRouche Youth Movement intends to help the DNC avoid the same mistake in 2004. LaRouche's growing youth movement is central to his campaign, and its strategy. LaRouche is the only candidate to hold a nationwide webcast for college students, on April 24, in which he told them: “There is a conflict between the ‘now' generation and the ‘no-future' generation which they have produced. The youth must inspire the older generation to face, and to change, the reality we are facing. The youth must go into the parties and revitalize the under-60 generation unwilling to face the reality of the world they have created--because there are solutions.” That is exactly what the LaRouche youth did on the Howard University campus in Washington, D.C. on April 1, when they confronted Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the current chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, on the Caucus' failure, to date, to invite LaRouche to the four Presidential debates it will sponsor in Detroit, Los Angeles, Jackson, Mississippi, and either Baltimore or Philadelphia. The fearless intervention of the organizers into Cummings' planned speech on affirmative action became the talk of the campus, and the report in Howard's newspaper, The Hilltop, reflected the shockwaves created by the truth-telling of the LaRouche youth: LaRouche must be President, or the nation is lost! The Ohio Democratic Party is also under pressure to face the reality that LaRouche is leading the so-called major Democratic candidates in his base of support, as well as ideas. So far, the party has not invited LaRouche to its upcoming Democratic dinner, which will feature the other major candidates. Likewise, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) has not invited LaRouche to his “Heartland Forums.” It is past time to stop playing Presidential campaigns as farce, and face the reality of who really is a major candidate based on support, without the “new clothes” provided by the press. Don't you think it's time to have a debate, and a discussion, that includes reality and solutions? That is to say, isn't it time the Democratic Party leaders included LaRouche, or moved on to never-never land? TABLE 1: Funds Raised by Democratic Presidential Candidates to March 31
Source: Federal Election Commission. [Return to article] TABLE 2: Number of Individual Contributions to Democratic Candidates
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