Pfizer's prior CEO, Hank McKinnell, made no secret about the fact that he strongly supported a Republican agenda. He was a Bush Ranger and virtually twisted the arms of employees, trying to get them to support his personal agenda. I even got a phone call from someone claiming to call on his behalf, when I failed to pony up $2,000 for a Bush reelection fund raiser in 2003.
According to Bloomberg, "As chairman of the Business Roundtable, a Washington-based CEO association, McKinnell backs several of President George W. Bush's proposals, like personal Social Security accounts. In the 2004 election cycle McKinnell gave about $96,000 to Republican candidates and $350 to Democrats."And of course, McKinnell has had Jeff Kindler, Pfizer's new CEO, at his side at innumerable fund raising events. Perhaps this is not very surprising, considering that Kindler was vying for the CEO position. But is Jeff Kindler really an ultra-conservative Republican, in McKinnell's mold?
After all, he started his life as a trial lawyer at WILLIAMS & CONNOLLY and trial lawyers are known to be Democrats . . . So what about Mr. Kindler?
And on NewsMeat we find the answer. Kindler has a long history of giving federal campaign contributions to DEMOCRATS. See this and this.
You may want to compare Kindler's record with McKinnell's record here.
So perhaps we will no longer hear aggressive fund raising stories, like this one, recently featured in a comment on PharmaGossip:
"I saved Pfizer's ass in 2002 when I personally took care of eight of twenty-one items on a warning letter for Pfizer... For that effort I got a 3% raise. If I’d committed to giving a thousand dollars to the Pfizer Political Action Committee that year I could have met Hank, had dinner with him, shaken his hand and had my picture taken with him. Yes, Pfizer has values."
Conclusion: We may see quite a change in Pfizer's future values. Maybe they'll even stop coercing employees to give money to Republicans?
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