In talking about the Clinton/McCain gas tax holiday proposal yesterday, Obama mentioned a Shell oil lobbyist as the surrogate advocating this idea.
ABC News Jake Tapper, says that starting at 10:53, Obama "took a turn not in his prepared remarks":
"Does anyone here really trust the oil companies to give you the savings, when they could just pocket the money themselves? There's not an expert out there that believes that this is going to work. There's not an editorial out there that has said this is actually the answer to high gas prices. In fact my understanding is today, Senator Clinton had to send out a surrogate to speak on behalf of this plan, and all she could find was, get this, a lobbyist for Shell Oil to explain how this is going to be good for consumers. It's a 'shell game,' literally."
Obama's campaign confirmed that he was referring to a CNN appearance Wednesday by Steve Elmendorf, whose lobbying firm earned $420,000 from the Shell Oil from 2006-2008.
Conflict of Interest much?
Elmendorf has very strong ties to the Clinton campaign -- he is a leading surrogate for her in the traditional media. This fits exactly the same pattern as Mark Penn lobbying for the Colombian government in direct conflict to Clinton's stated policies. She says one thing while her closest advisors get paid to push the opposite.
Steve Elmendorf
When Obama talks about running against "Washington" and special interest lobbyists, Elmendorf puts a face to it. He's a prime example of a so-called Democrat who works on behalf of corporations against the interests of labor, the netroots and progressives in general.
In January 2006, Elmendorf notoriously said of the netroots:
"The bloggers and online donors represent an important resource for the party, but they are not representative of the majority you need to win elections. The trick will be to harness their energy and their money without looking like you are a captive of the activist left."
Markos M replied:
"Here's notice, any Democrat associated with Elmendorf will be outed. The netroots can then decide for itself whether it wants to provide some of that energy and money to that candidate. There's nothing 'extreme left' with demanding Democrats act like Democrats, no matter how much these out-of-touch and self-important beltway insiders think it is."
(Also in 2006, Elmendorf supports Joe Lieberman's independent re-election bid after Lieberman lost the Democratic primary for the CT-Sen.)
Recently Elmendorf has been lobbying for the so-called "Patent Reform" legislation (which is actually the Infringers Protection Act). Politico.com had an article about a month ago about the death of this bill (at least for the moment), which had Elmendorf lined up on one side with big tech and financial services companies, against labor, small inventors, and colleges and universities on the other side, and he almost won. To capture something about what labor thinks of Elmendorf, Leo Gerard, president of the United Steelworkers and an opponent of the bill, is quotes as saying Elmendorf's high-tech and financial services clients "can go to hell."
While Clinton often claims in her stump speech that as Americans "we are the inventors and innovators," Elmendorf is the ringleader of a huge lobbying effort to gut the patent system on behalf of a dozen multinational tech companies.
While Clinton liberally invokes populist rhetoric against Wall Street and claims she will fight for Main Street, Elmendorf lobbies for the interests of the 20 largest financial institutions with U.S. operations (including Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, JP Morgan Chase and Bank of America).
From CBS News:
During a routine stump speech at a fund-raiser tonight, Hillary Clinton sounded slightly paranoid when discussing the current energy crisis in America, warning that if the U.S. does not act to fix the current energy policy, other countries would "take our inventions, they will take our research, they will take our intellectual property and our patents and they will create the jobs."
This is exactly what the opponents of the patent bill — which include inventors, research universities and labor unions — argue that its passage will result in.
Here's a diary I wrote here back in September, and a similar diary I made on Obama's blog, that have more detail about the patent legislation, and Elmendorf's role.
Now Elmendorf, a Shell Oil lobbyist, is on CNN shilling for Clinton's gas tax holiday proposal.
This is what is wrong with Washington. This is what Obama is campaigning against. And while he talks about it in abstract terms sometimes, Elmendorf puts a face to it, and provides of perfect example of what Clinton would bring to the White House.
Now is the time, before Tuesday's votes in NC and IN, for the netroots to step up and get Obama's back on this one, and follow through on Kos' earlier threat. By referencing his appearance on CNN, Obama has raised the opportunity to make Elmendorf the poster child for "these out-of-touch and self-important beltway insiders" as Kos called them.
Perhaps Clinton should be called upon to "denounce and reject" Steve Elmendorf and the corporate giants he is paid to lobby for, in contradiction to Clinton's rhetoric and against the interests of the American people.