Green Eggs and Hillary: Big Bucks Fundraiser Raises Questions
Is a fund-raising breakfast for a politician worthy of coverage on GamePolitics?
It is if the politician is a prominent critic of the video game industry and its rating system, say, Hillary Clinton... And if the fund-raising breakfast is sponsored by the president of the video game industry trade association, Doug Lowenstein of the ESA... And if a grass roots, anti-violence community group, oh, maybe the Peaceoholics, vows to protest at the breakfast as they did outside Take 2's offices in Lower Manhattan last month...
Yesterday's planned $1,000-a-plate fund-raising breakfast for Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) apparently went off without a hitch. Lacking both the thousand bucks and the requisite invitation, GamePolitics couldn't get to the Phoenix Park Hotel, a mere two blocks from the Capitol Building. GP instead made do by swilling down a grande half-caff at a local Starbucks. But we were definitely thinking of Hillary and Doug, and what truly strange bedfellows they make.
After all, it was only back in July that Hillary was the driving force in getting the Entertainment Software Rating Board to re-rate GTA: San Andreas as "adults only" following the infamous Hot Coffee revelations. Clinton called for an FTC investigation, and vowed to introduce legislation aimed at preventing the sale of violent and sexually explicit games to minor.
About the same time, Doug was fighting back, rejecting the Senator's call for legislation and blaming parents for providing mature-themed games to their children. Doug even went as far as to say, "The legislation proposed by Senator Clinton is unconstitutional on its face...we hope that after further reflection and dialogue, Senator Clinton will abandon the bill and work cooperatively with industry..."
So imagine our surprise when game journalist and Kotaku editor Brian Crecente broke the story in the Rocky Mountain News on August 9th that Doug, along with EA exec Steve Schnur, was hosting the grand-a-plate bash for Hillary, who faces a 2006 Senate campaign as well as a presidential bid in 2008.
The story in The Rocky quoted Steven Weiss of the Center for Responsive Politics as saying the breakfast fund-raiser has the earmarks of "an industry trying to curry favor with one of its critics...It's hard to separate an individual donor from a high level position they hold in an influential industry group..."
GamePolitics took a strong editorial stance against the fund-raiser at the time. We also reported a few days later that the Peaceoholics planned to protest the breakfast over their concerns with video game violence. Subsequent GP requests for comment on the apparent conflict of interest went unanswered by Senator Clinton's office.
So how did this play out? Sources in Washington D.C. have confirmed that the breakfast was held. The planned Peaceoholics protest never materialized. The group's leader, Ronald Moten, told GamePolitics this morning that his organization needed to work on its budget yesterday instead of picketing.
GP contacted Senator Clinton's office this morning and was directed to her campaign, Friends of Hillary. GP asked the campaign for the number of people attending the event as well as for a copy of the senator's remarks. As of press time, no information has yet been forthcoming.