I don't think that Barack Obama is a hypocrite.
As long as they keep it positive I really don't have an opinion one way or another what these 527's do at all. Especially when in the case of the Alliance for a New America they represent "special interests" like the SEIU, its labor constituency including people like nurses and even as one Obama supporter inferred here a possibly senile old lady duped out of her money by a forger.
I think the recent spate of Edwards hate by many Obama supporters at this website is just another attempt to attack John Edwards on personality with smears and innuendo, but there is a much larger issue here than I know your candidate is but what is mine?
Adam B wrote a diary explaining the difference between illegal 527 activities, candidate advocacy, and legal 527 activities, issue advocacy.
So what's the problem?
This criticism and continued characterization of Edwards as a cheat doesn't match the shoe is on the other foot test or bode well for the party as a whole in November.
Shoe on the Other Foot
Personally, I've been wearing boots lately as I canvass for John Edwards as a volunteer out of the Dover office in NH - but enough about me.
Vote Hope 2008 is covering all the bases by forming both a 527 for big money donors and a PAC. Last summer I read this and didn't give it a second thought because it didn't really interest me at all. But now this report has more relevance:
Obama's supporters get around money limit
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
California supporters of Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama are using a controversial political committee to rake in donations in excess of what is allowed under tough federal campaign finance laws.
Exploiting a legal loophole, the Obama supporters have set up a so-called 527 group - an unregulated committee of the type deployed by Republican Swift Boat Veterans in the 2004 presidential campaign - as a centerpiece of political fundraising for the California Democratic primary in February.
So far, wealthy donors have written checks in the amounts of $90,000 and $50,000 to "Vote Hope 2008," the Obama supporters' 527 group, federal records show...
The same Obama supporters have also set up a political action committee - the type of fund-raising device used by special-interest groups to funnel donations to multiple candidates - and used it to raise money for Obama's California campaign, records show. The political action committee also is called "Vote Hope 2008."
Herbert and Marion Sandler are the big donors behind this endeavor. They made their own fortune as the founders of Golden West Financial Corp., a specialist in the ARM market, and they seem like real stand-up Democrats dedicated to philanthropy and in particular get out the vote activities, human rights and environmental issues. I'd be proud if John Edwards had been been able to secure their endorsement or their financial backing through a 527. For a very positive piece on the Sandler family business you can read this fairly recent article about their business: How To Ride A Housing Bubble
The expressed purpose of the group is this:
The Vote Hope Web site says their goal is to "deliver California for Barack Obama" by mobilizing 500,000 Democrats to cast absentee ballots in the primary. Spokeswoman Jenifer Ancona said Vote Hope is independent of Obama's campaign, and complies with all laws. Together, the political action committee and the 527 group hope to raise and spend $3 million on what Ancona called "a positive campaign, a grassroots campaign to increase voter turnout."
So is that illegal activity, candidate advocacy? Or is it legal activity, issue advocacy? Let's just be clear here, they aren't trying to get any voters to vote absentee for any candidate. They're working to get 500,000 people to vote absentee specifically for Obama.
In the case of Vote Hope, Obama publicly called for the group to cease and desist and has stated that there is no co-ordination between the Obama campaign and the 527. That's sufficient for me. I accepted it from Edwards on the Alliance for a New America and I like to apply the same standard to different candidates, but I recognize that is my choice.
Here's where the right shoe doesn't fit the left foot.
The 'Vote Hope' card
The chink in Obama's anti-527 purity is Vote Hope, a pro-Obama group in California that registered both a PAC and a 527.
The group hasn't reported spending on media, but it's gig is gathering early votes, and while it's unclear how active it's been, its ties to the Sandler family mean it could be important. At the same time, given the huge importance of Iowa, it's a less important player — at least right now — than the people and unions throwing money on Clinton's and Edwards' behalf at Iowa TV stations and mailboxes.
Fair enough, Iowa is more important than California at this point, but why is Obama now attacking John Edwards in his stump speech for doing or not doing the same exact thing? Why is Obama's closing argument to voters: that guy who sounds real good is a liar because a 527 is kicking in some muscle and support for his campaign.
Today we get this opinion piece from The Nation:
Obama: Mo Money, Mo Problems
Barack Obama's presidential campaign is circulating an unusual memo complaining that "unprecedented" spending by Democratic groups could "impact the outcome" in next week's Iowa Caucuses. Campaign Manager David Plouffe does not allege any illegal activity by other candidates, but he claims that some of the advertising by unions and liberal organizations is "underhanded," "negative," and "misleading."
"Underhanded," "negative," and "misleading." They're a labor group and we're Democrats. They're sending out positive mailers, putting up positive Edwards ads and if they're anything like the groups active in and around Dover then they probably figure out how to get their members phonebanking and canvassing for the campaign. How the hell is that "underhanded," "negative," and "misleading?" Granted, it's an Obama campaign spokesman that is using those words and not the candidate himself, but why attack a bed rock "special interest" group like SEIU as a Democrat running for President.
This isn't the dirty tricks type of stuff that one splinter labor group backing Hillary Clinton in Iowa pulled on John Edwards in recent days. This is coming from the candidate himself and his official staff.
Which brings me to the boding part.
Also from the Nation's opinion piece:
Obama is basically complaining about the political activities of union-affiliated groups, which are strongly supported by many Democratic voters. All the candidates seek union endorsements in the primaries -- and rely on their spending and mobilization efforts in the general election. (Unions spent over $60 million on the midterms.) So it's hard to take Obama's complaint seriously, as Paul Krugman noted, when the road to the White House includes plenty more spending by outside groups. And even putting aside the general election, outside groups are currently backing Obama, including a California organization registered as a "527" and a PAC. So Obama's concerns sound more like sour grapes -- AFSCME and SEIU would probably face little criticism if they were spending money on him. (They are helping Clinton and Edwards, respectively.)
From Krugman earlier this week:
... unions still matter politically. And right now they’re at the heart of a nasty political scuffle among Democrats...
Meanwhile, however, unions are supporting favored candidates. Hillary Clinton — who for a time seemed the clear front-runner — has received the most union support. John Edwards, whose populist message resonates with labor, has also received considerable labor support.
But Barack Obama, though he has a solid pro-labor voting record, has not — in part, perhaps, because his message of "a new kind of politics" that will transcend bitter partisanship doesn’t make much sense to union leaders who know, from the experience of confronting corporations and their political allies head on, that partisanship isn’t going away anytime soon.
Krugman asks two questions and really clarifies the situation:
- Should we be demonizing politically active labor groups and "lumping" them in with for-profit advocacy in DC?
- Will Obama, as our nominee, run without labor's support in the general election? And if he accepts their support then who is going to post the YouTube clip showing him to be situationally supportive of a major Democratic constituency?
Krugman's close:
Part of what happened here, I think, is that Mr. Obama, looking for a stick with which to beat an opponent who has lately acquired some momentum, either carelessly or cynically failed to think about how his rhetoric would affect the eventual ability of the Democratic nominee, whoever he or she is, to campaign effectively. In this sense, his latest gambit resembles his previous echoing of G.O.P. talking points on Social Security.
Beyond that, the episode illustrates what’s wrong with campaigning on generalities about political transformation and trying to avoid sounding partisan.
It may be partisan to say that a 527 run by labor unions supporting health care reform isn’t the same thing as a 527 run by insurance companies opposing it. But it’s also the simple truth.
I'm a partisan and I respect, no welcome, the efforts of union backed groups to work for real change in this sinking ship on fire of a country that I still think is a great nation.
Do Obama partisans at this website agree with me there?