State GOP does SOMETHING right: Cantwell's Cash.com

The Ultimate Flip-Flop
Cantwell then:

“I'm not going to be bought by special interests.”

Cantwell now:

Top recipient in Congress of lobbyist money.
-Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Sept. 9, 2000
-Center for Responsive Politics, 2002

CANTWELL BROKE HER WORD TO THE PEOPLE OF WASHINGTON

Back in the 2000 campaign, Maria Cantwell promised us she was different. Because she was personally wealthy she wouldn't need special interest money and PAC contributions to fund her campaign.

But things changed when Cantwell found herself in financial hot water. She abandoned her “principles” and started taking money wherever she could find it…including PACs.

As a state legislator, Cantwell took tens of thousands of dollars in PAC money. And, more than half of her campaign money - 55%, to be exact - came from PACs when she unsuccessfully ran for re-election to Congress in 1994. She changed her tune when she became a dot-com multimillionaire. But when her dot-com stock value plunged, she went right back to taking money from lobbyists and special interests. According the Center for Responsive Politics Cantwell's top contributors are lawyers and lobbyists. In addition many of Cantwell's top contributors have given her money through PAC-like means, either through the company's owners or employees' families.

For some reason, Cantwell is still claiming she hasn’t taken PAC money. But in fact, as the Center for Responsive Politics shows, she has taken money from a variety of other Democratic Senators’ campaign PACs -- most of which receive the vast majority of their funds from special interest PACs.

Cantwell then:

"I believe in requiring full disclosure."

Cantwell now:

Her office originally said she had a debt of $1.2 million left over from 2000, but it has since been revealed that her debt is actually $3.8 million

-Cantwell 2000 web site
-AP and Tacoma News Tribune, 2/1/02

THE BOTTOM LINE:CANTWELL’S IN THE POCKET OF SPECIAL INTERESTS

When Maria Cantwell was elected to the Senate in 2000, she was facing millions of dollars in her own personal – not campaign – debt. Since then she’s been raising money from lobbyists, special interest groups other Democratic Senators’ PAC funds.

The money Sen. Cantwell has been taking from special interests is going to pay off her own personal debt. Which means she owes a huge debt of gratitude to all the special interests who have saved her from personal financial ruin.

Maria Cantwell said she would work for the people of Washington state. But it’s becoming more and more clear that she’s in the pocket of the special interests in Washington, D.C.