posted 08-20-2003 05:45 PM            

"The system is designed to isolate itself to protect that area, to have the area go down and have the rest of the system survive. And instead it spread further and longer than it should have," said Michehl R. Gent, president and CEO of the North American Electric Reliability Council.

A spokesman for the Ohio power company, FirstEnergy Corp., said it had followed all proper procedures but would not comment specifically on whether it had triggered the huge blackout by failing to separate.

"If they had separated you might have seen a region in Ohio area that would have been without power, but you would not have seen it in almost a national scale, as we did," Divan said.

Where It All Began – ABC News

The President of First Energy, Tony Alexander, is a Bush "Pioneer," meaning he raised more than $100,000 in individual contributions for the 2000 Bush presidential campaign. Alexander was also a major player in the Bush Energy Transition Team, according to the National Resources Defense Council.

Much of the $100,000 was "donated" by First Energy employees:

When Republican presidential front-runner George W. Bush visited Akron Aug. 20, his campaign coffers swelled with the proceeds from a well-publicized $1,000-a-plate luncheon attended by more than 300 prominent GOP supporters.

But three weeks earlier, the same hotel hosted a private gathering of corporate executives also interested in financing the Texas governor's White House bid.

The earlier event at the Hilton Akron/Fairlawn wasn't billed as a fund-raiser. All the same, it poured tens of thousands into the Bush campaign -- vividly demonstrating how a major corporation can flex its political muscle despite laws aimed at curbing the power of big business to affect elections.

The occasion was the annual two-day conference of high-level managers of FirstEnergy Corp., the Akron-based utility giant that provides electricity for homes and businesses across northern Ohio and into western Pennsylvania.

Amid the usual business of business, about 170 executives, directors, supervisors, managers and spouses heard a hard sales pitch for donations for Bush.

There was nothing illegal about that. While corporations are barred by law from donating a dime to a presidential candidate, nothing stops them from asking their employees to give.

And give they did.