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BIZ BIGS BACKING BUSH WITH BUCKS

By BEN SILVERMAN
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April 5, 2004 -- Money talks and, well, we all know what walks.

And in the world of politics, especially in an election year, money speaks volumes. It's not surprising then to find that America's business elite is solidly lined up behind President George W. Bush.

A search of Federal Election Commission records, conducted through FundRace.org, found that the vast majority of technology, telecommunications and media executives have donated to the Bush campaign.

The calculations, according to FundRace.org, are based on records filed with the FEC of $200-and-up contributions to a single campaign between January 1, 2003, and February 29, 2004.

In Telecom Land, Bush is king. The chief executives of AT&T Wireless, Verizon, BellSouth, SBC, Sprint, Lucent and AT&T, and the chairman of IDT, all gave to Bush. So did financier Carl Icahn, who controls XO Communications, and Jeffrey Citron, chief executive of upstart voice-over-Internet-protocol player Vonage.

Qualcomm CEO Irwin Jacobs bucked the trend, donating money to Democrats John Kerry and Howard Dean.

The tech world is also firmly behind Bush. Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, IBM Chairman and CEO Sam Palmisano, Hewlett-Packard's Carly Fiorina and Dell namesake Michael Dell all contributed money to Bush's campaign. Craig Barrett, chief executive of Intel, apparently hedged his bets - he gave both to the Bush campaign and to Joe Lieberman's.

RealNetworks' Rob Glaser, meanwhile, toed the Democrat line, ponying up campaign contributions to both John Edwards and Kerry.

It's in Big Bucks Country where Bush apparently isn't well liked. Billionaire George Soros - who has publicly acknowledged that his goal is to see Bush shown the door - gave to Kerry, General Wesley Clark, Dean and Bob Graham.

Berkshire Hathaway's Warren Buffet opened his checkbook for Clark and Graham. (And the unrelated singer Jimmy Buffett also gave to Graham.)

Graham, whose campaign never got off the ground, was also the recipient of a contribution from Yankees owner George Steinbrenner. Guess that proves that friends in high places don't mean much when it comes to political campaigns.

Internet executives wound up somewhat split.

EBay CEO Meg Whitman, Yahoo! CEO Terry Semel and Yahoo! founder Jerry Yang all gave to Bush. But InterActiveCorp Chairman Barry Diller donated to Dick Gephardt's campaign. No records of contributions exist for Amazon.com's Jeff Bezos. Bush support is strong among media players.

Among the media giants, Comcast's Brian Roberts gave to Bush, as did NBC's Bob Wright, Time Warner's Dick Parsons and Steve Case, and News Corp. Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch (News Corp. is the parent company of The Post). Cablevision's James and Charles Dolan gave to Bush as well, but CEO James also gave to Lieberman's campaign.

So does the support of all these business titans help Bush and mean doom for Kerry? Not really. By law, individuals can only give a candidate's campaign $2,000 - and while many spouses also equaled their husbands' or wives' contributions, money collected by company-sponsored political action committees and local party representatives easily outweighs a $2,000 contribution from one mogul.

And while it may be telling that America's business titans overwhelmingly support the president, it also may show that the gap between America's workers - underemployed and underpaid - and their bosses is wider than ever.

If nothing else, the president can count on the support of some big names. But like the rest of us, they only get one vote.

* Please send e-mail to:

bsilverman@nypost.com



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