Desperately Out-Of-It Housewives
In The New York Times, Mike McIntyre reveals that a lot of the biggest contributors for New York City mayoral candidates had no idea that they "gave at the office":
The most generous campaign contributors - the ones who write the fattest checks to candidates for mayor of New York City - are not chief executives, doctors or lawyers. They are not even lobbyists.They are women who call themselves homemakers, and some of them apparently do not realize just how generous they have been.
It turns out that many of them - some of whom live outside the city and may not be terribly invested in the outcome of races here - made their $4,950 contributions, the legal maximum, at the behest of deep-pocketed spouses with business interests in the city.
They are people like Helaine Gould of Long Island, who, when asked last week why she contributed $4,950 to Gifford Miller, the City Council speaker and a Democratic candidate for mayor, referred questions to her spouse's real estate investment firm.
"That was handled through my husband's office," she said. "I'm not familiar with it."
Hortense said about the same. So did Anna:
Hortense Schur, reached by telephone in Boca Raton, Fla., said her $4,950 contribution to Fernando Ferrer, a Democratic mayoral candidate, "was really not mine, it's my husband's. I don't know much about it." She was one of nine members of the Schur family, some of whom are involved in manufacturing and real estate in New York, who each wrote $4,950 checks to the Ferrer campaign.Another Ferrer contributor, Anna Cuneo of West Harrison, N.Y., whose husband is one of two executives at a Manhattan construction company who contributed to Mr. Ferrer, seemed unprepared for questions about her check.
"I'm going to have to get back to you," she said. "And this was a contribution to whom?"
Certainly, some contributors who describe themselves as homemakers choose to support a particular candidate for reasons other than their spouses' business or political interests. But instances of a woman joining her husband in writing big checks to his favored candidate - effectively doubling what he is able to contribute - are common and well documented.
Ladies, perhaps you hadn't heard, but a lot of women worked really hard to get us the vote, and allow us into the political process. Now's no time to move back to Stepford!
Leave a comment