Obama Has To Play The Game

Though I sure as hell don't like what this article says, we, as Americans, must face the fact that until we demand change in the way we elect our officials, special interest money will call the shots and anyone who wishes to get elected to reform the process will have to play the game as it is played by everyone else in order to get elected.

Push for publicly funded elections NOW.

We will never have a Democracy until we get the big money out of politics.

Sen. Obama finesses his lobbyist ties
By Alexander Bolton
April 20, 2007

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) has pledged to create a new brand of politics in the Democratic presidential primary by rejecting contributions from lobbyists and political action committees (PAC), but his fundraising records show that he relies on donors with special interests.

Three of Obama’s top fundraisers, who each have raised more than $50,000 for his campaign since January, were registered as lobbyists last year, according to reports filed with the Senate Office of Public Records. In 2006, Alan Solomont of Solomont Bailis Ventures earned $90,000 in lobbying income; Tom Reed, of Kirkland & Ellis, lobbied for the Seismological Society of America, the Nanobusiness Alliance, and the Airport Minority Advisory Council; and Scott Harris, of Harris, Wiltshire & Grannis, represented Cisco Systems, Microsoft, Dell and Sprint-Nextel.

All three Obama fundraisers have said they are no longer lobbyists, although the public records office has not posted contract termination reports for any of them. Several other major Obama fundraisers also have histories of lobbying government officials for a living. Thomas Perrelli was a lobbyist for Jenner & Block as recently as 2005. Until 2003, when Obama was a member of the Illinois Senate, Peter Bynoe was a registered state lobbyist representing Boeing and other corporate interests, according to the Illinois secretary of state.

They have both raised at least $50,000 for Obama’s presidential bid, according to his campaign.

Frank Clark, chairman of Commonwealth Edison, helped lead a $2.2 million congressional lobbying effort on nuclear research and waste disposal in 2000, according to a report under his name filed with the Senate. He also raised more than $50,000 for Obama this year. He played an important part trying to persuade state lawmakers to deregulate the energy industry in Illinois.

All this may surprise Obama’s supporters.

In a fundraising e-mail sent to supporters at the beginning of March, the candidate wrote that Washington’s special-interest industry is trying “to own our political process and dictate our policies in Washington.“We’re not going to play that game. We’re not taking any contributions from Washington lobbyists or political action committees. We’re going to transform the political process by bringing together hundreds of thousands of ordinary Americans to build a campaign.”

Critics of lobbyist influence in politics say Obama cannot make a serious bid for the Oval Office and escape the influence of special interests. “You don’t escape special-interest influence-giving simply by banning lobbyists from being able to give to you,” said Nick Nyhart, the president of Public Campaign, which advocates public financing of elections. “Most of the givers are in some way connected to entities that employ lobbyists.

The interests are there even if the individual [donors] are not lobbyists themselves.“By collecting $1,000, $2,000, and $2,300 checks, you’re simply walking into the interests of special-interest America. “I think it’s a positive gesture,” Nyhart said of Obama’s ban on lobbyist contributions, “but to the extent it makes people think candidates are not taking special-interest money, it’s just wrong.”

Bill Burton, Obama’s spokesman, said the candidate is doing his best in a difficult situation.“This ban is part of Obama’s best effort to address the problem of money in politics,” said Burton. “It isn’t a perfect solution to the problem, and it isn’t even a perfect symbol, but it does reflect that Obama shares the urgent desire of the American people to change the way Washington operates.”

While several of Obama’s fundraisers have recent experience working as lobbyists, at least 10 other big fundraisers hold senior positions in companies that have lobbyists under contract or employed lobbyists in the last few years, according to public records. David Heller and Bruce Heyman are big Obama fundraisers and managing directors at Goldman Sachs.

Last year, Goldman Sachs spent $3.3 million on lobbying. The company hired firms such as DLA Piper, Rich Feuer Group, and the Duberstein Group to influence lawmakers. James Dinan, the founder and CEO of York Capital Management, is another Obama bundler. His company hired Dutko Worldwide to lobby on asbestos issues in 2005 and 2006.

Some Obama fundraisers have obscured their professional affiliations. John Schmidt did not list his employer on Obama’s April fundraising report. But a comparison of his name and address with old Federal Election Commission records shows that he works, or at least did until recently, for Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw, a firm that lobbied the federal government on behalf of 70 clients during the second half of 2006. Its client list included Chevron, Motorola, Verizon, Visa, JP Morgan and Credit Suisse.

Other Obama fundraisers work for companies that have hired lobbyists to work on issues of the jurisdiction of Senate committees on which Obama sits.

Bill Kennard, for example, is managing director at The Carlyle Group, based in Washington. The Carlyle Group paid a lobbying firm, Ogilvy Government Relations, $460,000 last year to lobby on pension legislation and trade relations with China and Korea, issues that fall within Obama’s committee responsibilities.

He sits on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and the Foreign Relations panel.

One Obama fundraiser who said he did not feel comfortable speaking on the record said Obama has left millions of campaign dollars uncollected by eschewing lobbyists’ contributions. “There is an enormous amount of money he could have collected from folks who are lobbyists who are not contributing or fundraising, at least in the D.C. area,” he said. “I’ve called a lot of people; more of them are registered than I understood.”

The financial sacrifice enhances Obama’s effort to portray himself as a reformer and new brand of politician. Such an image is potentially helpful on the campaign trail, but as the year wears on, a saintly reputation could become a liability if opponents successfully frame it as an exercise in hypocrisy. “

Senator Obama is in a very difficult situation — he wants to wage a serious campaign for the president when the entire public-financing program has been abandoned by everyone who is a serious candidate for president,” said Craig Holman, an advocate of public financing with Public Citizen. “He has to raise $300 million to $400 million or $500 million. He’s trying to do that at the same time he is trying to clean up Washington.”


....and the truth shall set us free.