GOP Donors Dine With the Queen

The White House hosted the Queen of England last night with an intimate formal dinner for 134 guests in white ties. What did one have to do to score an invitation to such an event? Win a Nobel Prize? Bring home an Olympics gold medal?

Apparently, one just has to be very rich. The guest list included an Arizona car dealer, an interior designer and a former Enron executive.

As The Blotter reports, 18 big GOP donors dined with the Queen last night. Not just ordinary GOP donors. As Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the campaign finance watchdog group Center for Responsive Politics said, "In a sense, this is the GOP royalty."

The 18 major donors on last night's guest list each raised and contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars for Bush and the Republican party over the past decade, according to an ABC News analysis of campaign contribution data available at Opensecrets.

Among the guests to attend the white-tie dinner was Jim Click, a Tucson, Ariz., car dealership owner, who has contributed more than $900,000 for Republicans since 1994, and was designated a Bush "Ranger" for raising more than $200,000 for Bush's 2000 and 2004 presidential campaigns.

Click is the cousin and business partner of Robert Tuttle, also a major contributor, who is now the U.S. ambassador to Great Britain. Tuttle raised at least $100,000 for Bush's re-election campaign, making him a Bush "Pioneer."

Tuttle's predecessor as ambassador to Great Britain, William S. Farish, was also guest at the dinner. Farish and his family have contributed more than $220,000 to the Republican party and made a $100,000 donation to Bush's 2001 inaugural committee. Months later, Bush appointed Farish ambassador.

Many of the major donors on the guest list came from the Texas oil and energy industries, including former Enron executive Richard Kinder. Kinder left Enron in 1996 after buying out the company's pipeline operations to start his own business. Kinder has contributed nearly $1 million to Bush and the GOP since the early 1990s, including $350,000 in donations to Bush's inaugural funds.

Also receiving coveted invitations were Texas oilmen T. Boone Pickens and Ray L. Hunt. Pickens and Hunt have each contributed more than $700,000 to the Republican party going back to the first Bush presidency.

Speaking of royalty, the families of George W. Bush and Prince William are related through Henry Spencer, who lived in Northamptonshire during the 15th century. So joking aside, he really is King George.

Comments (2) «

It wasn't so long ago that Republicans raised a ruckus over the issue of Democratic donors getting nights in the Lincoln bedroom. It's business as usual, but you won't hear any of the GOP complaining about this.

John Fracchia
www.wideawakeinhoserland.com

1

johnfracchia on May 9, 2007 at 09:07 AM

This is a disgusting thought. In the article, Rumsfeld is comparing bush to Winston Churchill and how he handled Adolf Hitler.

Winston's grandson, an MP, says bush is no Churchill. What an insult to the great man Winston Churchill.

Bush 'no Churchill' says grandson

2

Johnedwrd on May 10, 2007 at 11:01 AM

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