I'd pay him NOT to support me

The Associated Press reports that Al Sharpton was actually paid in connection with his support of John Kerry.

WASHINGTON - All of John Kerry (news - web sites)'s one-time rivals in the Democratic presidential primary eventually lined up to support him as the nominee, but only one got paid for it — Al Sharpton (news - web sites).

The Democratic National Committee (news - web sites) paid Sharpton $86,715 in travel and consulting fees to compensate for his campaigning for Kerry and other Democratic candidates, according to reports to the Federal Election Commission (news - web sites).

In an interview with The Associated Press, Sharpton said he was paid for travel and he didn't know how much he had been reimbursed. "They asked me to travel to 20 or 30 cities to campaign, and I did that," Sharpton said. "What am I supposed to do, donate the cost of air fare?"

But records show that while most of the money was to reimburse travel expenses, Sharpton was paid $35,000 as a "political consulting fee" 15 days after the election. The consulting fee was first reported in this week's edition of the Village Voice. Democratic National Committee spokesman Jano Cabrera said the party paid Sharpton at the request of the Kerry campaign.
"After meeting with Kerry's staff, we did agree to pay for Reverend Sharpton's travel and consulting expenses," Cabrera said. "He traveled very extensively to help the nominee and Democrats across the board, encouraging them to get out and vote on November 2." ...

Kerry's eight other former rivals from the Democratic primary also worked to varying degrees to get Kerry elected. In particular, Wesley Clark (news - web sites), Bob Graham, Dick Gephardt (news - web sites) and Dennis Kucinich (news - web sites) often campaigned with Kerry, although the latter three mostly appeared in their home states. But none of the other eight Democrats who were once in the race were paid travel reimbursements or consulting fees, according to a search of federal records collected by tracking service PoliticalMoneyLine.