The following little comment on the Hillary ‘lobbyist’ ‘defense’ led to this post on who’s giving what $$$ to whom:
WTF are you getting on about? (none / 0)
Obama, Clinton, Edwards, Dodd, Richardson and Biden all receive a great deal of money more or less from ‘corporations’, from the upper-class professions, and from the wealthy elite generally.
But the real problem is not that legalized bribery, but ‘Washington lobbyists’? That molehill inspires Booman’s “Do we really hate ourselves this much?”
They’re ALL money whores, and there’s no such thing as a good money whore. And, my sympathies, Arthur G, but you need to take a good look at Hillary campaign donations. They are directly below. And the Obama lovers need to look at his $$$ too. Edwards, well, his whore $$$ aren’t quite as bad, he doesn’t play with all comers (or they don’t wanna play with him), so maybe he’s not as much of a whore as those other two. And as for “I’m for public financing” Chris Dodd, well, check out the money numbers!
BDB states the obvious over at talkleft (emphasis added):
… all of the frontrunners take money from corporate interests. I honestly doubt that the Wall Street executives who back Obama or the trial lawyers who back Edwards have vastly different policy preferences on the issues facing their businesses than the lobbyists those same folks hire. You either go with publicly financed campaigns (which all of the leading candidates seem to support) or you don’t.
Opensecrets.org (that’s right, it’s an open secret people!), tells us all we need to know, in its Contributions from Selected Industries (as of July 15, 2007) charts.
Interested in health care reform? Check out who the Pharmo-Medico Lobby contributes to:
Insurance Industry:
Christopher J. Dodd: $592,950
Hillary Clinton: $341,240
Barack Obama: $258,172
Bill Richardson: $91,183
John Edwards: $83,737
Joseph R. Biden: $61,325
Dennis J. Kucinich: $500Pharmaceuticals/Health Products:
Hillary Clinton: $172,150
Barack Obama: $160,572
Christopher J. Dodd: $56,700
Joseph R. Biden Jr.: $10,500
Bill Richardson: $7,150
John Edwards: $6,758
Dennis J. Kucinich: $800Health Professionals:
Hillary Clinton: $998,851
Barack Obama: $701,993
John Edwards: $254,297
Bill Richardson: $131,225
Joseph R. Biden: $74,050
Christopher J. Dodd: $66,250
Dennis J. Kucinich: $7,900
Mike Gravel: $1,000
Want a candidate who’ll fight for workers and middle class folks instead of for the banks and Wall Street? Check out these campaign donation figures:
Hedge Funds:
Christopher J. Dodd: $726,950
Hillary Clinton: $703,600
Barack Obama: $652,105
John Edwards: $218,290
Bill Richardson: $85,900
Joseph R. Biden: $28,300
Securities & Investment:
Hillary Clinton: $3,330,325
Barack Obama: $3,156,174
Christopher J. Dodd: $2,200,916
John Edwards: $668,590
Bill Richardson: $351,000
Joseph R. Biden: $250,900
Dennis J. Kucinich: $750
Mike Gravel: $250Commercial Banks:
Barack Obama: $607,259
Hillary Clinton: $492,725
Christopher J. Dodd: $352,500
John Edwards: $131,876
Joseph R. Biden: $102,250
Bill Richardson: $83,000
Dennis J. Kucinich: $225Real Estate:
Hillary Clinton: $2,746,039
Barack Obama: $1,337,529
Christopher J. Dodd: $582,783
John Edwards: $500,870
Bill Richardson: $418,775
Joseph R. Biden: $328,784
Dennis J. Kucinich: $6,800
Mike Gravel: $300
Dodd is the chairman of the banking committee, so that explains his numbers.
Yeah, I didn’t think it has to do with his presidential prospects.
Thanks for writing this fairleft. I wish everyone in the progressive blogosphere would see it. This whole charade is, as you say, an open secret.
It doesn’t really matter much where these folks SAY they stand on issues as long as they are being bought and paid for by the oligarchy.
I, for one, am about to abandon the idea that the Democrats are spineless and start looking at how they are financially controlled by folks with interests that are diametrically opposed to mine.
Well, Edwards looks like a health care free agent. I wish he’d use that freedom to propose single-payer, rather than the expensive and insurance-company subservient plan he has proposed.
Another reason to give Kusinich a second look. And how about Gravel? For the kind of money these guys are getting, they would necessarily vote AGAINST these interests rather than for them. How insulting. What do you suppose Kusinich did with his $225 from the banks? Open an account?
Last year I volunteered for Andy Hurst, who took no PAC money, didn’t get any political credit for it, couldn’t raise enough money from regular people, and lost. He did much better than expected, but lost. Campaigns take money.
Moreover, Clinton is right about lobbyists. They may not be alturistic, but they are not evil. And campaign cash is the least of our problems. The stranglehold of right wing stink tanks and a corrupt press is the real problem in our country.
In fact, lefty blogosphere could form strategic alliances with certain lobbyists for certain kinds of fights. The obvious is Google and net neutrality. But there is also big Pharma and stem cell research, the construction industry and infrastructure repair, and a host of other issues.
Lobbyists are part of the coalition.
You must have missed the last seven years of Republican politics: PAC money is good?
Well candidates have to participate in the race that they’ve entered. You can’t have a foot race where one of the participants gets on a horse.
We have a money-driven system, if candidates want to win they need to get money. If you want to see better and more independent candidates you need to reform the system, not blame those who are trapped in it.
Notice that the good government types (like Common Cause) make little headway. Here’s the game:
Notice that the Supreme Court has constantly sided with big money interests by knocking down any attempt to curb their spending under a misguided interpretation of the 1st amendment. This guarantees freedom of speech, not freedom of dollars. They are ensuring that the present system where one dollar = one vote remains instead of one person = one vote.
Corporations are an artificial construction of the state and therefore the state can put whatever restrictions on them that it wishes. This should extend to how they spend their money in the political sphere.
If you want to see independent candidates you need to focus on election reform. Asking one candidate to unilaterally disarm in the money wars isn’t realistic.
I agree. A lot of shoulds would make things much better and more democratic, but you describe the game as it is. BTW (and for example), I’ve written about the corporation ‘shoulds’ in my diaries. But all these good shoulds depend on the one big should that would trigger all the lesser ones: getting money out of political campaigns.
On the other hand, if politicians could think more unconventionally, the way Paul Wellstone or Jerry Brown have, they might not think things are so hopeless for money-poor campaigns. Money-poor politicians might also think about becoming more authentically populist on issues like protectionism (it’s a good thing), immigration, and affirmative action. You need a helluva lot of populist and worker energy if you’re gonna forego corporate and elite money.