Stark Cause and Effect

Could you ask for a more graphic reminder that money buys influence and power? Ignore the leading terms and look at the facts:

THE plunge in AOL Time Warner stock has hurt the Democratic Party and its chances of controlling both houses of Congress after tomorrow’s elections. Many Democratic candidates across the country were pinched for campaign funds which they might have gotten in years past from Jane Fonda. The ex-wife of Ted Turner is reported to have given $11 million to leftist groups in the year 2000. But since most of her fortune is in AOL Time Warner shares, and the share price has plummeted from a high of $100 since then to less than $15 on Friday, Fonda has not been as generous. And it’s not just liberal politicians feeling the pinch. Groups like Planned Parenthood and the Sierra Club, past recipients of Fonda cash, cut back on their advertising budgets this year. “The left-leaning organizations are spending less because they’ve raised less,” said one media consultant. Planned Parenthood is only spending $2 million compared to $10 million in 2000.

Ideology isn’t the point here: it’s the fact that so much influence is concertrated in so few hands.

Note the book title below: give any girl a few-hundred million and she will indeed be empowered.