This story has very little value outside of the punny headline.
That said, the two most electorally vulnerable PA Republican Congressmen are in hock to big Ketchup.
With the sale of HJ Heinz to Berkshire Hathaway and 3G Capital, Teresa Heinz Kerry isn’t the only political figure making big bucks from the corporate Ketchup raid.
Via Bloomberg Businessweek and the Center for Responsive Politics:
Republican Representative Mike Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania bought between $1,000 and $15,000 of stock in November 2011.
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Freshman Republican Keith Rothfus valued his Heinz stake at between $15,000 and $50,000, with his wife owning an additional $50,000 and $100,000 of Heinz stock.
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The $23 billion sale of Heinz valued the stock at $72.50 a share, 20 percent higher than yesterday’s closing price of $60.48.
HJ Heinz was Rothfus’s 3rd largest donor during the 2012 cycle. In fact, Rothfus was HJ Heinz’s top recipient in the 2012 cycle, receiving more than double the next highest recipient.
Despite Congressman Fitzpatrick’s willingness to invest in Heinz, Fitzpatrick appears not to have received any Ketchup cash at all.
This seems to indicate that Fitzpatrick should really start hitting the bottle (of Ketchup) to get that last bit of tomato money out of HJ Heinz before Berkshire starts calling the shots.
[Note: Campaign finance searches were not performed for "Catsup" manufacturers like Hunt's and Del Monte. Only real "Ketchup" companies were included. It should be noted, however, that the word "Ketchup" is derived from the Chinese condiment ke-tsiap. So, obviously, the real question is why the financial backers of Congressional Republicans are outsourcing our condiment spelling conventions to China.]
