"She's doing very well for us and ... for New York State," Murdoch said on Fox the other day in response to questions about his fundraiser supporting Democrat sentator Hillary Clinton. The question more likely is, what has she done for Murdoch to get him on her side against Senator John McCain in a presidential bid?
According to an analysis done by the NY Daily News, Ms. Clinton has done a lot more for wily old businessman Murdoch than McCain ever did, and for that, she gets a big brown nose from the aging tycoon.
Saying support for Clinton the female is simply "a good business decision" is probably the most tongue-in-cheek comment made to date by the bandwagon-jumping boss.
According to a Daily News analysis of Clinton the female, however -- at least for HIS business -- he may have a valid point:
"Positions on dozens of bills that News Corp. reported lobbying for (or against) in the past five years, she's a lot friendlier to the company's interests than McCain is. On my highly unscientific Murdoch Scale, Clinton gets a 68% rating, while McCain gets just 26%. (You can find more details of this rough but useful calculation on The Daily News' Daily Politics blog.)"
"In fact, the Arizona Republican has been more hostile to News Corp.'s sprawling media interests than any other senator. The central issues are commercial. In the past five years, News Corp. reports it has lobbied officials on least 14 bills sponsored by McCain and opposed by Big Media. The proposals range from a plan to bring "decency" back to the airwaves to a measure that would have required satellite television providers -- like Murdoch's DirecTV -- to offer some channels free in rural areas."
"Clinton, by contrast, has shown relatively little interest in regulating the media. From 2001 to 2005, she signed on to just two bills related to regulating television that raised News Corp.'s hackles. She also has co-sponsored legislation tightening copyright laws, which would be in the interest of News Corp.'s film companies, which include 20th Century Fox."
"Clinton also has voted largely in favor of News Corp.'s other main legislative interest, free trade, though McCain has a more purely pro-free-trade record. Clinton has been more closely aligned with News Corp. than other Democratic senators seeking the presidency, including John Kerry and Russ Feingold, who have been quicker to support measures to regulate the broadcast media and reduce the power of giant media companies like Murdoch's."
The only presidential possibility on the Republican side, according to Murdoch's money trail, is George Allen. Why? Because he co-sponsors one of the News Corp bills that would make the Neilsen Ratings system go under federal oversight. Evidently, Murdoch was angered by an alleged understating of their number of viewers on some shows.
What a productive use of government time... watching out for some rich old guy's fat cat dollars. Forget the border, the war, the environment: Get those viewer numbers right, dammit!!
Another presidential hopeful making life a little easier for the media mogul is Rudy Giuliani, whose law firm Bracewell & Giuliani, is a registered lobbyist for News Corp.
According to a story in the NY Daily News, the firm is trying to stop McCain's proposed Indecent and Gratuitous and Excessively Violent Programming Act, a bill meant to provide protections for children by keeping television sex and violence from them, from being enacted.
Just to cover for himself with those Republicans who might find this concerning, Giuliani had his spokesperson, Sunny Mindel, make the statement that, although the firm lobbied against the act, the former mayor does no lobbying himself.
-- Compiled from wire reports
FEATURES 
