I see a lot of people excorciating Hillary for taking money from 'lobbyists.' The argument seems to be that even though Obama and Edwards also take money from lobbyists, Hillary is somehow uniquely bad because she has taken the most. This is a bankrupt argument, in my view. Hillary is OBVIOUSLY going to get the most money from lobbyists as (1) the frontrunner LAST year, and (2) the candidate with the most inside connections in the Democratic party.
The other candidates have an interest in drawing a contrast with that, and it's hard to tell then how committed they are to remaining pure from lobbies. Evidence on a smaller scale suggests they aren't really all that committed. Both Obama and Edwards have taken money from lobbyists.
Edwards claims not to take corporate money but has taken a large amount of money from the Fortress Investment Group. Why? Probably because Fortress helped fund his Two Americas campaign after his VP run in 2004. They wanted to do something for a good cause and he let them. But pretending that he somehow has never taken a dollar from a corporate lobbyist when he has taken millions from them is hypocrisy.
He has certainly changed his position since he started running for President:
In 2001 Edwards launched his New American Optimists political action committee, a 527 Leadership PAC to aid "Democratic candidates who support a reform agenda for giving people a greater control over their futures," i.e., who might support an Edwards presidential bid in 2004. More than 70 percent of its contributions came from trial lawyers, their law firms or family members.In fact, with rare exceptions such as Hollywood impresarios Steve Bing and Haim Saban and the investment firm Goldman Sachs, virtually every penny of Edwards’ political contributions from 1998 into 2004 has come from trial lawyer-linked sources
source
Obama's New Hampshire state chair is listed on the New Hampshire SoS website as a registered lobbyist for Pharmaceutal companies (and surprise, on OpenSecret's Obama's Pharmaceutal industry donations are especially strong), even though he denied it more than once.
Though Obama has also said that he won't take federal PAC and lobbyist money on his campaign, he does take money from state based lobbyists as previously reported by First Read.
Obama's co-chair in New Hampshire, Jim Demers, is a state based lobbyist for the pharmaceutical and financial services industries amongst others.
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/...
No one is an angel here, and no one is a devil. Anyone who tells you otherwise is not being truthful.
Saying that special interests are to blame and stopping there is not specific enough, and misses the point. The problem is not the existence of unions, or the AARP or the association of transportation workers, for example, in and of itself, the problem is when specific, smaller interests trump the larger interest of the American people because of politicians who are unprinciples or unscrupulous.
In many authoritarian regimes, you are not allowed to form independent political associations at all. I do think it's a good thing that in the U.S., you can. These formations are a part of the democratic process.
However, we also desperately need campaign finance reform and lobbying reform to ensure that special interests do not make politicians at their mercy-- whether Presidential candidates or Congressional candidates. All of our candidates, including Hillary, agree on the need for such reform. Obama said he supported lobbying reform, but on Saturday night we found out that his bill still allows dinners to be given to politicians as long as they are standing up.
What it really comes down to is this: If a politician is not unprincipled or unscrupulous, and really does care about the issues, then that should be central.
We should be judging the candidate based on how committed we think he or she personally is to the issues we care about.
Hillary's response to this at the DKos convention was widely reviled here.
"I don't think, based on my 35 years fighting for what I believe in, anybody seriously believes I'm going to be influenced by a lobbyist or a particular interest group," Clinton said.
"A lot of these lobbyists, whether you like it or not, represent real Americans. They actually do. They represent nurses, they represent social workers -- yes, they represent corporations that employ a lot of people."
Hillary's argument is that she is not going to be influenced by lobbyists because she has real beliefs and values. Consider that you've been involved in public progressive causes like children's care, health care and education for decades and are now in a major policymaking role. Consider that you have a 100% Progressive Punch rating on campaign finance reform and a strong pro-labor voting record. What's more important to you, another few thousand dollars but being efficiaous on the issues you've worked on your entire life? Just entertain me for a moment here.
Now, of course that won't fly with people who believe that she has no real principles but all she cares about is power. To me her long history of fighting for progressive causes belies that. She's had more than one unguarded moment in public life from not 'baking cookies' the 'VRWC'. I really believe that she is still passionate about the things that she was passionate about as a young woman. She is not just running to get power, I think she is running in large part because she really does care about the direction of the country. They are all politicians and they all aspire to the highest office. I think Clinton does care about it a great deal, in fact she may be even more passionate about it than either Edwards or Obama. But I don't count that against her, because a candidate who is passionate is also a candidate who will fight for our Democratic values and who will be motivated to come to work every day and do well.
She has supposedly changed from her early days in 1993-94 from someone who cared about health care to someone who has sold out to the insurance companies. Yet I have yet to hear one person who can come up with a substantive policy reason why she would have sold out. Her health care plan today is just as universal as it ever was. It's very similiar to those offered by Obama and Edwards.
There are other reasons for her to accept lobbyist money and for lobbyists to give money even if she isn't going to change her positions on them. First of all, money helps your candidate win. If I am a union, for example, and I give money to a politician, even if I don't think he'd change his positions to be favorable toward my particular union, I might still give him money because I think he believes in standing up for working class people and a candidate like him would be an effective advocate for union causes in the White House. And if I'm a candidate, I might take that money for the same reason. PACs give money to candidates who they think can be successful and who can advocate for their issue. GIVEN the laws that we have today, that's not unreasonable. What we need to do is to change the laws so that candidates become less dependent on money. Otherwise, only billionaires would be able to run independent campaigns.
Hillary was leading in the polls in early 2007, although she no longer has that position, candidates toward the front are generally able to raise more money. I think that's a big factor for why she has seemingly 'raised' more money than Obama or Edwards.
But as noted above both Obama or Edwards have accepted money from corporate donors and special interests.
Now let me get back to this statement--
"A lot of these lobbyists, whether you like it or not, represent real Americans. They actually do. They represent nurses, they represent social workers -- yes, they represent corporations that employ a lot of people."
This was widely reviled. John Edwards's response was,
"How many people in this room have a Washington lobbyist working for you?"
That's a very interesting question so I decided to look into how many Americans are represented by some interest group or another. 15.4 million Americans are represented by labor unions. 38 million belong to the AARP. Anything from the Association of American Railroads to the American Mental Health Counselor's association to the thousands of others hold millions of honest, hardworking members.
I have to admit-- I've given money to special interests before. I've given money to Sierra Club, and the Save Darfur alliance. Anyone who's ever supported the Sierra Club, the ACLU, MoveOn.org, which has a PAC, or paid fees to any trade or industry association, has associated with lobbying organizations. And that's a hell of a lot of people. I give because I believed in the causes those organizations advocate.
Mark Penn. Okay, I get it, Mark Penn is not a progressive. Mark Penn is horrible. And Hillary has hired him as a pollster. What does that say about her, the people she 'associates with'?
First of all, Mark Penn was hired as a POLLSTER, not a policy director. So he has worked for tobacco. Is Hillary's campaign going to come out as pro-tobacco now? I don't think so. He was hired because he worked on Bill Clinton's 1996 campaign, so he was already trusted and prominent. How he was hired in 1996? I don't know. I do admit Bill Clinton was quite triangulating in 1996. However, I don't think the Clintons meant to be that way, in their hearts they have always been liberals. They chose strategy and in the long term it was a bad strategy. But I think Hillary realizes that, and she is too passionate, and the times have changed too much, to go back to that.
Mark Penn should be fired. He's a holdover from an old era. And he has completely screwed over Hillary. We can agree on that. Frankly I think one of the main reasons that Penn hasn't been fired is
(1) it would be hard to find another trusted professional Presidential-politics pollster this late in the game, and
(2) it would look bad to fire your top pollster
We all saw the true Al Gore after he lost the election in 2000, when he was freed from his advisors.
Are we to judge a candidate by their pollster, or to judge them on their own character and merits and motivations? Who a candidate's pollster is obviously only relevant to the extent that it effects their character. Hillary Clinton is the one we are deciding on, not Mark Penn.
The problem, as I have said, is clear. The problem is when politicians change what he or she thinks is right for all of the American people based on a narrow special interest. The answer is campaign finance reform.
So the question is-- who can we count on the most not to change or be changed by Washington special interests? Barack Obama and John Edwards, I believe they are both principled Democrats and progressives, but Obama is running on themes like Hope and Unity which I find to be not Democratic-specific and rather vague and broad; while John Edwards has become a lot more confrontational and a lot more populist in the last 2-3 years, when he's been running for President. He's changed. And he could change again. Neither of them has the long record of serving liberal causes as Hillary Clinton has.
The irony is that when you look beyond all the fluff and all the advisors and situational bullshit, she is the one who has been most consistent over many many years of supporting causes that champion the vulnerable and weak in our society-- the very core of progressive values. She has made her signature work on helping children, the sick, and the middle class. For a long time. And during much of that time she's been in Washington D.C., yes, she's built up Washington connections, and for some people that makes her look dirty. But I trust a person who has been in D.C. for years and still cares about progressive economic and social and foreign policy causes, despite all the D.C. bullshit, then someone who comes as an outsider promising change, but who hasn't really been tested. The latter person, we've had a lot of. Jimmy Carter campaigned like that. So did Bill Clinton. So did George W. Bush. But when you get to D.C. for the first time it can change you.
Hillary has been changed-- she's had her fall from grace-- and I don't mean recently in Iowa. She's hired bad pollsters, made mistakes by being associated with her husband's triangulation, didn't speak out loud enough against the war. But she's still the same Hillary, still fighting for the causes and still as liberal as she ever was. The compromises that she's made or thinks she's had to make to get to where she is doesn't change who she is. And if America really is ready for a progressive change, if the America of Mark Penn really is finished, she won't have to triangulate any more. You can already the evidence is in her policy proposals, which are very similiar to those of Edwards or Obama. The difference between thenmis really that she has been in the fight for longer and she has more experience than they do, and on certain issues she has never wavered.
I know I can trust her because she's been confronted by the atmosphere of D.C. and still stands for change. That is something refreshing from the Presidential politics of the last 25 years.