Hess Corp., Where Low-Level Oil Workers Donate Thousands to McCain

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Alice and Pasquale Rocchio are not the kinds of people you typically see donating $57,000, the maximum combined amount, to a single political campaign. Alice is an office manager; Pasquale, a foreman. They rent their home in Flushing, Queens, a modest, blue-collar suburb of New York City. They drive a 2003 Buick and a 1993 Chevrolet. Yet they both maxed out in donations to Sen. McCain’s campaign fund, McCain Victory 2008. Surprised?

Don’t be. Alice Rocchio works for the Hess Corporation, a mammoth American oil company, according to Talking Points Memo. At Hess, she joins a slew of employees who have also given the maximum allowable amounts to McCain’s fund.

Alice Rocchio told The New York Times that she made the decision on her own and wasn’t reimbursed by Hess as a way of circumventing campaign finance restrictions.

If she changes her mind about that, we’ll let you know.

—Max Fisher

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A full one-third of our annual fundraising comes in this month alone. That’s risky, because a strong December means our newsroom is on the beat and reporting at full strength—but a weak one means budget cuts and hard choices ahead.

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Managing an independent, nonprofit newsroom is staggeringly hard. There’s no cushion in our budget—no backup revenue, no corporate safety net. We can’t afford to fall short, and we can’t rely on corporations or deep-pocketed interests to fund the fierce, investigative journalism Mother Jones exists to do.

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