Phil Frost, chief executive of generic drug maker Ivax in Miami, may be one of the few top Florida business leaders to openly declare his support of John Kerry. But on Wednesday, Frost was surrounded by 199 of Kerry's closest business fans.
On tour in Iowa, the Kerry campaign unveiled a list of about 200 business executives nationwide who publicly endorsed the Democratic candidate for president. The list seeks to strengthen the candidate's standing on economic issues and aims to show that not all Republican-leaning business executives are marching in lockstep behind President Bush's re-election campaign.
Consider wealthy corporate Texas financier David Bonderman, who founded and runs the Texas Pacific Group investment firm in Fort Worth, and who backed Bush both when he ran for president in 2000 and earlier for Texas governor.
Now he's supporting Kerry - and he's not shy about saying so.
"George is a really good guy personally. But his policies are really terrible. And he had an opportunity to bring the country together - which was his (modus operandi) in Texas," Bonderman told the Wall Street Journal from a chartered boat off Italy, where he is vacationing. "But for reasons only his psychiatrist would know, he's chosen to do just the opposite as president. He's turning out to be the worst president since Millard Fillmore - and that's probably an insult to Millard Fillmore."
Bush, dubbed early in his term as the "CEO President," could easily assemble a list 10 or 20 times the size of the Kerry "business leaders" list. Bush's backing from the Republican-dominant world of CEOs is long and deep.
Kerry is attracting business executives upset with the policies of Bush and running mate Dick Cheney. The balanced budget achieved in the Clinton presidency was replaced under Bush with a hefty deficit. The number of newly created U.S. jobs by Bush in his first term never approached what was promised. And the country's tattered international reputation is a complaint many frequent-traveling executives hear often.
Other business leaders on the Kerry list include August Busch IV, a group executive at Anheuser-Busch; Bank of America chairman Charles K. Gifford; designer Vera Wang; Google CEO Eric Schmidt; and CEO Jonathan Tisch, whose Loews Hotels chain now operates the Don CeSar Beach Resort and Spa in St. Pete Beach.
Among the more unexpected Kerry supporters: Peter Chernin, president and chief operating officer of News Corp. and CEO of Fox Group. That's the same Rupert Murdoch-controlled company that owns and operates the Fox News Network, the most critical of the cable news network to cover the Kerry campaign. Murdoch is an outspoken supporter of Bush.
Chernin, in a statement, called the Kerry-Edwards plan for America "exactly what is needed to jumpstart businesses" and said it "will lower healthcare costs and cut taxes on corporations and small businesses to strengthen our economy today." Last month, Chernin called Bush's education policy "a joke."
Still, Wednesday's list of pro-Kerry business leaders also suggests the Democrat has a long way to go to generate any major support from the larger community of U.S. business leaders.
For all the executives listed on Kerry's list of 200, fewer than half are CEOs. Many are second-in-commands, former CEOs or retired. And some - including Lee Iacocca, Barry Diller, John W. Thompson, Laura D'Andrea Tyson - publicly declared their allegiance to Kerry long before Wednesday's list.
Many pro-Kerry business backers are annoyed with the arrogant style of the Bush White House, including Cheney's decision to hold secret talks on U.S. energy policy with selected industry executives and his ongoing refusal to divulge their names to the public.
Still other Kerry backers have not forgotten that Bush's biggest individual political contributor, before his fall from grace, was former Enron chairman Ken Lay. Bush even considered Lay for U.S. treasury secretary before Enron's woes led to the company's 2001 bankruptcy. Last month, Lay was handed an 11-count indictment on charges ranging from fraud to conspiracy.
Some business names on Kerry's list already are well-known Kerry supporters and advisers. Among them are Citigroup executive Robert Rubin, Evercore Partners chairman Roger Altman and Quadrangle Group executive Steve Rattner. Also on the list are Miramax co-chairmen Harvey and Robert Weinstein, who backed the release of Fahrenheit 9/11, Michael Moore's documentary.
Rattner, Altman and Blair Effron, vice chairman of UBS Investment Bank, were largely responsible for recruiting the bulk of the listed executives to Kerry.
A few have past Democratic ties. Lisa Caputo, listed without a company affiliation by the Kerry campaign as a "senior financial executive," actually works for Citigroup. She also happens to be a former press aide to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.
And Mack McLarty, listed by the Kerry campaign simply as the former head of Arkla, a natural gas company, boasts far more impressive credentials. A former White House chief of staff to former President Bill Clinton, he became president of Kissinger McLarty Associates, an international consulting partnership with Dr. Henry Kissinger. Now he serves as a senior adviser to the Carlyle Group, a politically connected investment bank built largely with ex-White House officials from both parties.
Kerry's campaign said some on the executives list are lifelong Republicans, though they were not identified. And two-thirds of those listed had never before chosen to take a public stand in a political campaign. Something must be motivating them.
