Acerbic Politics

Welcome to Comcast Country (Click here to read more)

By DANIEL DENVIR
APRIL 23, 2014
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PHILADELPHIA - COMCAST'S executive vice president, David L. Cohen, did not seem fazed when Senator Al Franken warned at a recent Judiciary Committee hearing that the company's proposed acquisition of Time Warner Cable would "result in fewer choices, higher prices and even worse service for my constituents." Comcast argues that the merger will not decrease competition among cable television or broadband Internet providers because the two companies do not directly compete - though the reason for that is that they already maintain virtual monopolies in many of their service areas.
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In Comcast's case, that monopoly is predicated upon exerting overwhelming political control. Just ask anyone who lives in Philadelphia, where the shiny 975-foot Comcast Center looms over the skyline. As buttons at the 2000 Republican National Convention in Philadelphia proclaimed: "Welcome to Comcast Country."
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Here, politicians heap unalloyed praise on Comcast's chairman and chief executive, Brian L. Roberts, and his father, the company's founder, Ralph J. Roberts.
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"You will have to search long and hard in this city to find anyone who will say anything bad about Comcast or the Robertses," the former governor of Pennsylvania and mayor of Philadelphia, Edward G. Rendell, told a reporter in 2001. Not incidentally, Mr. Cohen served as Mayor Rendell's chief of staff before taking over Comcast's political shop and becoming the Robertses' consigliere.