Still Friendly To Lobbyists After All
By Pejman Yousefzadeh Posted in 2008 | Barack Obama | The Audacity Of Hype — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Barack Obama has stated that he will not take money from PACs or federal lobbyists and that PAC and lobbyist money would also be banned from the Democratic National Committee now that Obama is the presumptive nominee and can institute such changes.
However, (1) former lobbyists, (2) unregistered lobbying firm partners and (3) state lobbyists can still give money. In addition, both the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee will continue to take money from PACs and lobbyists and the Vice Chair of the Democratic National Committee is a registered federal lobbyists.
Source. This is a Republican National Committee press release that I found on Google News. Of course, the RNC is expected to take Obama on with press releases criticizing his positions and there will be some who roll their eyes in non-surprise at this press release. But of course, if you can't dispute the actual information found in the press release, then it really doesn't matter who the source is, now does it?
Recall as well that despite Obama's boasts that he does not take money from oil companies--mostly because corporate contributions are illegal--he does, however, take money from oil and gas company employees, a take that was in the six figures as of two months ago.
If I had my druthers, of course, none of this would be that big a deal. Stephen Levitt and Stephen Dubner point out that money contributions do not so much influence political stances as they reward a stance that has already been taken. As such, one does not give money to a candidate in order to try to get that candidate to vote a certain way. Rather, one gives money to a candidate in an expression of support that comes as a consequence of that candidate having taken a particular position. This never struck me as being anything to write home about, but since Obama insists on attacking John McCain for his connections to lobbyists, it is only fair play to point out that the Obama campaign has been rather busy doing lobbyists favors as well.