E-Mail This Article to a Friend The GOP empire strikes back (continued)

Boone Pickens

Chair, BP Capital, Dallas, Texas

$5 million in contributions since July 1

— $5 million to 527s

$2.5 million Progress for America

$2.5 million Swift Boat Vets and POWs for Truth

Corporate raider Pickens (formerly T. Boone; he dropped the T. in recent years) is probably the best-known name on this list, although he doesn’t have the cachet he once wielded as a leveraged-buyout king. Pickens founded energy giant Mesa Petroleum, from which he divested in 1996. He has returned to the game in the past few years, however, making takeover bids (now called "unsolicited acquisition offers") for energy companies through his new financing company. Pickens has also spent years seeking the right to sell the groundwater under his Texas land to thirsty Southwestern cities.

Harold Simmons

Chair, Contran Corp., Dallas, Texas

$3,600,654 total contributions since July 1

— $3.6 million to 527s

$3 million Swift Boat Vets and POWs for Truth

$500,000 Progress for America

$100,000 Club for Growth

— $654 in hard money

Self-made billionaire Simmons, 72, built and sold the Eckerd drugstore chain, and now accumulates wealth through hostile takeovers. In the late 1980s, he came under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation — but it was the FEC that ended up fining Simmons, for contributing to Republican PACs above the legal limits. Mother Jones magazine has reported on recent efforts by Simmons’s Waste Control Specialists company to store nuclear waste from Ohio in Texas. Valhi, Simmons’s holding company, held a large quantity of Halliburton stock while Dick Cheney was its CEO.

A. Jerrold Perenchio

Chair and CEO, Univision, Bel Air, California

$3 million total contributions since July 1

— $3 million to 527s

$3 million Progress for America

Perenchio, 73, is worth $2.7 billion, mostly through his stake in Spanish-language network Univision. The former talent agent (his clients included Marlon Brando and Elizabeth Taylor) is famously press-shy, despite a high-profile career that has included producing All in the Family and promoting Oscar de la Hoya (he also bought and lives in the former Beverly Hillbillies mansion). He gave to some Democrats when Bill Clinton was in power, but more recently has funneled money primarily to Republican causes. However, in 1998, he gave $1.5 million in opposition to California’s Proposition 227, which replaced bilingual education with intensive English instruction.

Alice Walton

Fort Worth, Texas

$2,602,000 total contributions since July 1

— $2.6 million to 527s

$2.6 million Progress for America

— $2000 in hard money

Is it a coincidence that a few days after Jon Stewart announced his support for Kerry, Wal-Mart pulled his latest literary effort, America (The Book), from its shelves, ostensibly because one page contains nudity? The heirs to Sam Walton’s fortune have been big GOP funders, giving $1,450,750 to Republicans and just $56,175 to Democrats between 1998 and 2002, according to the Institute in State Politics.

Most of that came from John T. Walton, current company CEO, but his baby sister, 55-year-old Alice, has decided to kick in some of her $20 billion fortune this time around. Alice Walton, who raises horses on a massive 500,000-acre ranch in British Columbia, has been convicted of drunk driving; the documentation is posted on thesmokinggun.com.

Richard DeVos Sr.

Co-founder, Amway, Ada, Michigan

$2,014,346 total contributions since July 1

— $2,002,500 to 527s

$2 million Progress for America

$2500 Hardiman Administrative Account

— $11,846 in hard money

DeVos released a brief statement last month about his contributions, saying, "As an American, I cherish the freedom to express my personal political views.... I’m in the fortunate position to support a variety of both philanthropic and political causes." DeVos founded Amway Corporation, in 1959, with Jay Van Andel (see next entry), and now has a net worth of $2.4 billion. He owns the NBA’s Orlando Magic and the WNBA’s Orlando Miracle. He has written three books: Believe!, Compassionate Capitalism, and — after his 1997 heart transplant — Hope from My Heart ("Christians who like the feeling of being pumped up at inspirational seminars will find themselves motivated by this gung ho book on hope," says Amazon.com). Last year the Presidential Prayer Team ("not affiliated with any party or official") gave him its American Inspirations Award.

Jay Van Andel

Co-founder, Amway, Ada, Michigan

$2,012,000 total contributions since July 1

— $2 million to 527s

$2 million Progress for America

— $12,000 in hard money

Van Andel is worth $2.3 billion, and has formed the Van Andel Research Institute for cancer research. His son, Steve Van Andel, now chairs Alticor, the company into which Amway grew. Both father and son have chaired the board of the US Chamber of Commerce, which now funds the November Group, a 527 that runs ads attacking John Edwards. Van Andel’s 1998 book, An Enterprising Life, is rife with "Calvinist theology and conservative Republican politics," according to Publishers Weekly.

Robert C. McNair

Chair and CEO, the McNair Group, Houston, Texas

$1.25 million total contributions since July 1

— $1.25 million to 527s

$1.25 million Progress for America

McNair, 66, made his money in the oil and gas business, sold his business to Enron, and cleverly cashed out the stock before that company tanked. He’s worth $1.3 billion, according to Forbes. He owns the Houston Texans, is a big player in thoroughbred racing, invests heavily in medical technology through his Cogene BioTech Ventures company, and is an elder in his local Presbyterian church. He is also chairman emeritus of the Center for the American Idea, which provides materials and training for teachers in "the principles of private property, limited government, free market economics, liberty and an enduring moral order."

Carl Lindner Jr.

Chair and CEO, American Financial Group, Cincinnati, Ohio

$1,175,000 total contributions since July 1

— $1,175,000 to 527s

$750,000 Progress for America

$350,000 Swift Boat Vets and POWs for Truth

$75,000 College Republicans National Committee

Back in the mid 1990s, Lindner, normally a Republican contributor, became one of Bill Clinton’s famous "Lincoln Bedroom" donors by giving some $400,000 to Democrats through state parties. Columnist Bill Safire claimed it was a payoff for the Clinton administration’s attempts to open the European market to Chiquita bananas — a Lindner company. In January 2000, Time picked up the rotten-banana theme in an article alleging that Lindner was throwing money at everyone in Washington in an effort to influence critical decisions on the European market. (Investigations into the story by the Cincinnati Enquirer resulted in the paper’s infamous decision to back down and apologize for its use of internal Chiquita voicemail messages.) Lindner, a high-school dropout, is now 82 and worth $1.6 billion; he also owns the Cincinnati Reds.

Aubrey McClendon

Chair and CEO, Chesapeake Energy Corp., Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

$1,131,000 total contributions since July 1

— $1,125,000 to 527s

$375,000 Americans United To Protect Marriage

$250,000 Progress for America

$250,000 Swift Boat Vets and POWS for Truth

$250,000 Club for Growth

— $6000 in hard money

Chesapeake Energy says its oil and natural-gas production will increase 32 percent this year, thanks mostly to rapid increase in drilling — 442 new wells in 2003, and over 500 more expected by the end of ’04. Before this year, McClendon had been a relatively small political contributor, although a significant beneficiary to his alma mater, Duke University. Whether his newfound generosity to the GOP has personal or business reasons is unknown.

Robert Rowling

Chair, TRT Holdings, Irving, Texas

$1,009,000 total contributions since July 1

— $1,005,000 to 527s

$1 million Progress for America

$5000 Republican Leadership Coalition

— $4000 in hard money

If you’ve ever stayed at the Omni Parker House, in Boston, and tried to order pay-per-view porn, this is the man who frustrated your efforts. A trustee for Young Life Christian ministries, Rowling ordered the plug pulled on the service in 1999, three years after buying the Omni Hotel chain. He also owns Tana Exploration Company, which seeks oil and gas in the Gulf of Mexico, and plenty of other companies, including Gold’s Gym International and Waldo’s Dollar Mart. At 50 years old, Rowling is a pup on this list, but he had help in building his $2.7 billion fortune: he inherited most of it from his father. In addition to the contributions noted above, he gave $250,000 to the Club for Growth in June.

David S. Bernstein can be reached at dbernstein[a]phx.com