David Wilhelm

David Wilhelm is a superdelegate in the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.

Bio
David C Wilhelm is a labor organiser with close associations with the AFL-CIO, who has also acted as a tobacco industry lobbyist for most of his commercial life. [] [] He was initially a Research Director in the Public Employee Department at the AFL-CIO, and later became Chairman of the Democrat National Committee. He was best known for many years as the Executive Director of Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ), which earned about half its income from the tobacco industry. [] He was close to the Clinton Administration and exerted White House influence. []

During these years he also ran a number of think-tanks and companies which provided the tobacco industry, through Ogilvy & Mather and James Savarese & Associates, to a Tobacco Institute 'liberal' operation known as the Labor Management Committee (LMC or TILMC). [] The LMC served the tobacco industry as a 'cut-out' to maintain separation between the Tobacco Institute and the labor organizations. It also provided the industry with a funding-vehicle able to pay union and AFL-CIO executives and their wives with annual junkets to exotic locations to attend LMC conferences since only the inside group were aware of the source of the funds. Money from the cigarette companies was channelled through a couple of stages from the Tobacco Instutute to Jim Savarese and then to the LMC and on to various labor organizations, usually in the form of annual retainers in exchange for fronting or witness services, or as commissions for specific projects.

Wilhelm joined forces with another Democrat aide and lobbyist, Mike Lux, to create The Strategy Group which served the LMC as the tobacco operation's publicist and media promoter. [] They jointly established the Consumer Tax Alliance, which was directly linked to the Tobacco Institute without any influence from the unions (the CTJ had been part-controlled by six unions).[] []

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