Obama says he doesn’t take lobbysists money. He said it in this “Nothing’s Changed” ad, where he promised to charge a windfall tax on oil companies. He’s said it over and over again, that he will not be associated with lobbyists.
So why are 31 of 38 fundraisers members of a law firm that, gasp, lobbies in Washington:
Barack Obama often boasts he is “the only candidate who isn’t taking a dime from Washington lobbyists,” yet his fundraising team includes 38 members of law firms that were paid $138 million last year to lobby the federal government, records show.
Those lawyers, including 10 former federal lobbyists, have pledged to raise at least $3.5 million for the Illinois senator’s presidential race. Employees of their firms have given Obama’s campaign $2.26 million, a USA TODAY analysis of campaign finance data shows.
Thirty-one of the 38 are law firm partners, who typically receive a share of their firm’s lobbying fees. At least six of them have some managerial authority over lobbyists.
“It makes no difference whether the person is a registered lobbyist or the partner of a registered lobbyist, if the person is raising money to get access or curry favor,” said Michael Malbin, director of the Campaign Finance Institute, a non-partisan think tank.
It makes a difference when, A) you are a Democrat and B) you are Barack Obama. This is a party that accepted, “Well, it depends on what your definition of “is” is.”
