interesteddad

He's taken $98,000 from Exelon's PAC.

He has the largest PAC in the Senate and has been doling out PAC money $10,000 at a crack to endorsers and superdelegates. According to Obama's campaign rhetoric, he's buying influence with his PAC money, right?

mercymom

Thank you, Kluge.

1sokkermom

Re post #78:

Is this true or something on a blog?

interesteddad

Which part of it?

Obama has taken $98,000 from Exelon's and its predecessor Con-Edison's PACs since 1998.

He's been doling out money from his own PAC to endorsers since he started with $10,000 contributions to all the Democratic Congress members from Iowa and New Hampshire. The guy who endorsed him in Indiana this week got $12,000. This is all publicly reported campaign finance money.

Clinton shut down her large PAC when she announced for the Presidency because her lawyers felt that it violated ethics regulations.

cottonwood513

I do not believe you.

1sokkermom

I'dad,

Do you know if this is true?

"We asked the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, which categorizes and analyzes political contributions, whether this text was accurate.

The $800,000 number is correct. A recent analysis by the center showed Clinton has accepted $865,290 from lobbyists, based on data released on March 20, 2008.

The threshold of contributions by industry the ad lists for Clinton is probably too low, said Massie Ritsch, a spokesman for the center.

The center's analysis found the following amounts that lobbyists gave to Clinton:

* Energy: $442,800

* Pharmaceuticals/health products: $450,450

* Hospitals, health services/HMOs and insurance companies: $552,050

* Health professionals: $114,755.

Based on these numbers, we find Obama's statement that Clinton has taken more than $800,000 from lobbyists to be True."

tega

These might help

Obama, Clinton Donating Heavily to Superdelegates’ Campaigns - America’s Election HQ

Especially this one

McClatchy Washington Bureau | 03/28/2008 | Obama leads Clinton in giving money to superdelegates

interesteddad

Here's a chart of the donations to Senators and Congressmen from the Clinton and Obama PACs for the 2006 election cycle, plus details of the $299,000 Obama distritubted in 2007. As noted, Clinton shut down her PAC for the 2008 cycle.

Sen. Barack Obama & Sen. Hillary Clinton Leadership PAC Donations & Super-Delegate Endorsements

Here's a 2006 article by Harpers Magazine detailing some of Obama's benefactors and the contributions to his campaigns and PAC:

"A Bit More on Barack" by Ken Silverstein (Harper's Magazine)

interesteddad

sokkermom:

Of course we know Clinton has taken $800,000 of the what, 150 million, raised from PACs. She makes no bones about it and reports it.

It is Saint Obama who is playing games. To score cheap poitical points (something he decries, right) he stopped taking PAC and lobbiest money for this election. Well, not exactly. He still takes money from registered state lobbiest. Good grief. His New Hamphire campaign chairman was a registered lobbyiest.

And, he has federal lobbyiests among his major fundraisers. He just asked them to suspend their federal lobby registration for the year. Doesn't matter, they are mostly Washington lawyers workign for lobby firms where some are registered, some aren't. It's a sham.

Look at Obamas list of top donors. It reads like a list of Washinton based legal/lobby firms. Same as Clintons. Same as any other Presidential candiate.

Look, I don't begrudge him for financing his campaign the same way every other politician does. I don't have any problem with it at all. His fundraising is legal and in accordance with the campaign finance laws. I do begrudge him for being a hypocrite with his holier-than-thou attacks on Clinton for being "corrupt". He takes contributions, plays poker with lobbiests, and carries water just like any other politican.

Bullet

Kluge, thanks for seeing what I saw a few months back. The typical American voter has started to lose interest in this election, and have become tired of the negativity a long time ago. I mean, it's now waaaaay past thier 30-second attention span ("Gee, honey. ANOTHER Democratic debate? What's on American Idol?").

As to emphasizing a long term solution for energy independence versus forcing our collective efforts on a Summer band-aid tax fix, you and I may agree more than you think. You see, I believe our reliance on oil, and the fact that we must rely on outside sources to meet the demand, has much greater ramifications to this country than the price of a tank of gas and it's impact to our economy (which is STILL America's #1 strength, IMO)
Let's face it, this country's ability to maintain a steady supply has become our #1 strategic priority (again, IMHO). What has this done? It forces us to "play nice" with some countries that makes most Americans want to swallow down the bile in their throats every time we are forced to "look the other way at the way they do business" (I'm looking right at you, my Saudi "friends"), all the while as they line their pockets with our cash for their product. Our dependence on oil forces us to "pay attention" and intervene in all sector of the world, putting our need for a steady flow of oil over our desire to leave the rest of the world alone to their own messes, and has the added "bonus" of earning international condemnation over our "interference in other's sandboxes". And Ultimately, this current administration's desire for a stable environment in that neck of the woods to ensure a steady oil supply has lead to one of (if not THE) worst foriegn policy decisions in our country's history, and the consequences of that decision will be felt for decades, along with the tragic loss of over 4000 of America's finest treasure.

Trust me, the day they announce on CNN (between the latest news on Miley Cyrus or Brittany Spears) that scientists have discovered a cheap way to produce Nuclear fussion or some other "miracle" energy source is the day I hope our Congress passes a resolution telling the OPEC nations "Make 7 -- Up yours! I hope you learn to eat your own oil, becase we don't need you anymore" A little nasty, but OH So satisfying to dream about.

Do I understand that there are forces at work preventing this? Surely. But a man can dream that one day we will elect a President who will put his (or her ) country's interests over his own chances for election (or re-election). At this point, I'm just not sure any of the three candidates are the one I was hoping for, and are deciding to "pick the low fruit". Sigh.....

kluge

Okay, there's a little "which shell is the pea under" here regarding PACs, whether intentionally or not. If I understand the situation correctly, this is what is going on:

Both Clinton and Obama have had their own PAC's which they used to collect money from various sources, and then distribute it to other politicians in their party. This is a long-standing practice on the federal and (in California, at least) state level whereby the more prominent members of the party help out the others. Or bribe them, depending on how you look a it. Their own PACs accept money from other PACs.

This year Clinton apparently shut down her PAC and is keeping all money she raises from all sources for herself. Obama has continued to operate his PAC, but has raised money for his own campaign separately. And his own campaign has not taken any money from PACs. (He doesn't have to. His contributions from individuals dwarf that of any other candidate.)

So Obama isn't accepting any money from PACs for his presidential campaign. But his PAC has accepted PAC money to distribute to other Democratic politicians campaigns in the past and (apparently) has continued to do so. If I read the numbers correctly, Obama's PAC distributed $231,000 to other democratic candidates this year, down from $337K in the 2006 election. His own campaign has raised over $230 million from individual donors. Clinton's campaign has received over a million dollars in PAC money in addition to over $175 million in individual donations. It's not clear if Obama has ever used any PAC money in any of his own election campaigns, but it looks like he isn't doing it now.

I think that's accurate - any comments?

Opensecrets.org--Money in politics data

Bullet - couldn't agree more - on all points, including the 7-Up one.

interesteddad

Your numbers are a little off. Obama's Hopefund PAC has distributed nearly $1 million to federal Senate and Congressional candidates. $595,000 for the 2006 cycle and $299,000 for the 2008 cycle.

Clinton's HillPAC doled out $297,000 to federal candidates in the 2006 cycle. Zero in the 2008 cycle because her lawyers believed it was unethical to continue the PAC while a candidate.

You can find both PAC at opensecrets.org. Obama's is "Hope Fund". Clintons is "HillPAC".

You can also see the donors to each. These PACs are a slick little loophole Congress created for itself. Individual donation are capped at $5000 instead of the $2300 limitation on campaign contributions. So, they all raise this money and then dole it out to each other.

The biggest contributions Obama has doled out this year are $9,000 each to every Democratic Congressman in Iowa and New Hampshire. $9,000 is a lot for a freshman congress members reelection campaign in NH. Not surprisingly, both Paul Hode and Carol Porter-Shay endorsed Obama. Clinton couldn't bid for their endorsements because she had shut down her PAC.

The take-away point in all of this is the hypocrisy of Saint Obama railing against PACs on the campaign trail while continuing to dole out money from his own PAC to superdelegates who endorse him.

And, the whole PAC thing is red herring to start with. What difference does it make if you take $2300 from a registered federal lobbyist representing Exelon or $190,000 directly from Exelon executives. The money from lobbyists is dust on floor compared to the money directly from corporate employees. Do you think Clinton is going to carry more water for the lobbyists who gave her $1 million or the folk who gave her $175 million? It's the kind of trumped up, meaningless Washington gotcha "issue" that Obama decries.

It's like Edwards not taking lobby money when he flies around for two years on a corporate jet owned by his finance chairman, the head of the Trial Lawyers Association lobby group who hires an office building full of lobbyiests in Washington. And people fall for this nonsense.

interesteddad

That's not true. The ratings for the Pennsylvania Democratic debate were huge. The ratings for Clinton's appearences on the O'Reilly Show this week were double his normal ratings. The interest in the campaign remains very, very high.

I wish Obama weren't afraid to face off against Clinton in 90 minute unmoderated Lincoln/Douglas debates. For anyone bemoaning the lack of "issues", that format would be fantastic. It would be the first time in media history that candiates would have time to give a full and complete answer on an issue and then respond to challenges.

People loved watching O'Reilly and Clinton go after each other on the issues this week...two completely different political perspectives going at it hard, but respectfully. It was fun to watch. I wish they would do it for two hours and really get into the nitty gritty.

Obama and Clinton could do that in a debate without some brain dead media whore pundit like Timmy Russert asking assinine gotcha questions. I'm surprised that a "new kind of politics" guy like Obama doesn't jump at the chance for a real discussion of issues and policy.

kluge

Back to the PACs - on further review it looks as though Obama and Clinton both had "Leadership PACs" that they used to funnel money to their fellow democrats, but after the '06 election Clinton's was broke, and Obama still had about $650,000 left over in his. So he's been doling it out ever since to various democrats. It appears as though he stopped accepting donations (from anyone) for his PAC in early 2007, so all further distributions have come from cash on hand.

Which means that for this election cycle at least, Obama hasn't accepted any PAC money, either for his own campaign or his PAC.

Not that I find that particularly significant. The ability to say "I'm not taking any PAC money" is probably worth more than the relative drop in the bucket any such contributions would amount to in his campaign. But it does look like his campaign boast is accurate.

As to Clinton shutting down her PAC due to lawyer's advice re: ethics? Well, it's easy to be ethical about money you don't have, isn't it? She has accepted PAC money for her own campaign - not that I find that significant either.

interesteddad

So by that rationale, it's OK for Clinton to accept money from any PACs that "had money left over"?

I don't understand the distinction. If PAC money is bad because it buys influence over corrupt politicians, they what it Obama doing spending his PAC money to buy influence over corrupt poltiicians?