Obama and lobbyist money

[RecycleMichael]

http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2008/04/obamas-claims-o.html

Obama's claims on lobbyist money prove flimsy
Barack Obama has loudly criticized his presidential rivals for being too cozy with Washington influence seekers. Unlike John McCain or Hillary Clinton, he insists, he doesn't take money from corporate political action committees or Washington lobbyists. But as USA TODAY's Ken Dilanian pointed out in stories this week, that's a flimsy claim.

Although Obama refuses direct campaign contributions from "Washington lobbyists," he takes money from lobbyists' spouses and holds fundraisers at the offices of law firms that lobby Congress. He won't touch money from PACs or lobbyists representing big oil and drug companies, but he happily accepts huge amounts of money from executives at those companies and many others. In fact, he's relying on two oil company executives to raise $50,000 apiece for his campaign.

Obama may like voters to think he'd cross the street rather than deal with a lobbyist, but nine of his campaign staffers are former lobbyists, and some of his informal advisers are current lobbyists.

The story is much the same with McCain, who also likes to portray himself as a scourge of lobbyists. His inner circle and fundraising ranks are heavily populated with current and former lobbyists. Ditto for Clinton's campaign advisers and bundlers of cash.

The reality is that as much as some candidates like to demonize lobbyists, they're a virtually unavoidable part of the Washington culture. They petition the government on causes as popular as animal welfare or national parks and as unpopular as cockfighting or pollution. It's virtually impossible to run a modern national campaign without relying on them or the sort of money they represent. Campaigns simply cost too much.

After the mega-scandal involving disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, it's heartening that the candidates are at least trying to keep their distance from black-hat influence peddlers. But more important than head-of-a-pin arguments over who's purer on the lobbyist issue, it's who's trying to do something about a system where presidential candidates are forced to go hat in hand to special interests that typically expect a return on their investment.

Obama and McCain both made noises early on about accepting public financing for the general election, which would shut down outside money and provide each major party candidate $84 million. But lately, they've both sounded less eager about trusting a system that is rusty and underfunded.

That system needs to be fixed for future presidential elections and, even more crucially, extended to congressional elections.

The same toxic money-grubbing that taints presidents stains House and Senate candidates, too. Obama and Clinton have said they support broader public financing; McCain is opposed. That, not who has more lobbyists on their donor rolls this year, is the key issue for voters interested in getting special interest money out of politics.

[waterboy]

Wouldn't a fairer and more unbiased topic thread have read, "Candidates and Lobbyist Money"? You skewered Obama then justified it with a discussion of the broader issue. Talk about flimsy disguises.

The term "lobbyist" has become perjorative. In fact these folks represent organizations who want to advance positive goals more often than those who want to milk the system. I'm not even sure its feasible to control lobbying, considering as you noted, that the spider web of spouses, bosses, cousins, former co-workers, partners etc., etc. is never ending. Just how far do you have to be removed from an organization for your donation to be untainted?

The problem is that the rules are set to keep donations invisible. Rules set up by congressmen intent on hiding conflicts and potential criticism. Don't attempt to limit lobbying, simply make the entire process visible. We can then draw our own conclusions.

In the furtherance of that visibility, I think you know all this. You simply used this as an excuse to cast doubt on your candidates opponent.

[pmcalk]

The best place to learn more about who is donated to which candidate can be found here:

http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/select.asp?Ind=E01

You can choose an industry, and find out what they gave to each candidate.  It includes individual donations (based upon their employment) provided they donated at least $200.

It's true that Obama has received $222,309 in donations from oil & gas affiliated individuals, as compared to Hillary's $309,363.  Based upon industry, Hillary has received more money than Obama in the areas of Casinos/gambling, Health Prof., Health Services, Hedge funds, Insurance industry (she received more than any other candidate), Lawyers (again, more than any other candidate), Lobbyists, Real Estate, & Tobacco (to be fair, neither received much from them).

Both received about the same amount from Commercial banks, Securities, and TV/Movies, though Obama received slightly more.

Obama received significantly more money from the Computer/internet, Education, Hospital, and Pharmaceutical industries.  Obama also receives significantly more money from retired people (no industry affiliation).

Isn't odd how Hillary supporters seem to think it is a good move to attack Obama for doing the exact same thing that she does?

[Conan71]

As long as it costs $200mm or better to become President, this is our corrupt system.

Is it a good solution to limit campaigns to a Federal Gov't hand-out of $81mm or so?  I really don't think so.  I don't like the fact that Presidential candidates are reimbursed any amount by the Fed'l Gov't now.  The only expenditures the treasury should have is polling costs and the actual innauguration (not the lavish innaugural festivities which surround it).

Limiting it to government funds just furthers the elitist club that D.C. politics is.  That would severely narrow the field of prospective candidates right from the start who have no money to put together the staff it takes to properly get to the first of the primaries.

I honestly don't know where the solution lies, other than a fund-raising cap on candidates and ban PAC's to keep overages in donations from being funneled to other campaigns.  

All three of these candidates are for sale to the highest bidder.  I've learned campaign finance reform is nothing more than code-speak for shuffling the deck on donors.  [xx(]

[RecycleMichael]

The reason why USA Today did a story on it and I posted in here was that Obama is running television ads saying he is not taking this money. He is criticizing the others while doing the same himself.

Yes, they all take money from lobbyists. Obama just runs misleading ads saying he doesn't.