Elderly Protest Trekker Castigates Bush On Funds

FORT WORTH, Texas (Reuters) - A great-grandmother walking across the United States to demand campaign finance reform said Monday that it was ``obscene'' that Republican presidential hopeful George W. Bush had raised a record $36.3 million for his White House run.

Doris Haddock, an 89-year-old New Hampshire native who goes by the nickname Granny D, started her 13-month trek to Washington from Los Angeles to call attention to what she says are loopholes allowing large corporate donations to U.S. political campaigns.

Asked about the record fund raising of Bush, the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination next year, Haddock castigated the Texas governor.

``I think it is obscene and ridiculous that he's bragging about how much he has raised for the primaries,'' she told reporters.

``We don't know anything about his ideals or what he stands for. Apparently he stands for being able to raise a lot of money,'' she said.

Bush announced last week that he had raised the money in the first four months of primary campaigning, more than doubling the previous record for the same period, Republican Bob Dole's $13.6 million in 1995.

Haddock, who says she reached the halfway point in her march when she arrived in the Fort Worth area at the weekend, said she wanted prompt passage of two campaign finance reform packages being debated in Congress, the House's Shays-Meehan bill and the McCain-Feingold bill in the Senate.

``I started this trek because I have 11 great-grandchildren and I fear our democracy is in peril and that government of the people, by the people, for the people is perishing because of the soft money being used by big interests and corporations to take over our election,'' she said.

She was speaking during her daily 10-mile walk before breaking for the rest of the day. Haddock says she rises every day at 4 a.m. and starts walking early to finish for the day by around 10 or 11 a.m.

She says she has covered some 1,700 miles through California, Arizona, New Mexico and west Texas despite arthritis and emphysema.

Along the roadside, supporters who have followed her route through her Web site,http://www.grannyd.com, stop her for conversation and to offer food and free lodging for the walker and her daughter and son-in-law, who follow her in a van.