Clinton And Obama Gave Superdelegates Close To $900K

ABC's Political Punch:

The Center for Responsive Politics has just published an intriguing study noting that Sens. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, and Barack Obama, D-Illinois, have given the superdelegates they are so hotly pursuing almost $900K in campaign contributions. Obama is the major giver.

"(W)hile it would be unseemly for the candidates to hand out thousands of dollars to primary voters, or to the delegates pledged to represent the will of those voters, elected officials who are superdelegates have received at least $890,000 from Obama and Clinton in the form of campaign contributions over the last three years, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics," the report states.

Read the whole story: ABC's Political Punch

Comments

[Jimmyboyo]

LOL

Obama donated his excess campaign cash from when running for the senate to less financed dems across the nation for the last 3 years.

BUT this virtue is now being turned into a vice by the clintonistas

LOL

So let me get this straight......Obama can see the future! He is superman! He has super powers to have known up to 3 years ago that superdelegates would play a role in this election and that he and hillary would be as close as they are


LOL

Based just on his superpowers he should be president then.

LOL

[Triangulate]

Donated...not donating. There's a difference.

[rollingdivision]

You just couldn't devise a worse set of primary rules if you were trying. When we thought every possible bad consequence of the Rube Goldberg Democratic primary super delegate scheme had been revealed another ugly fact boils up to the top of the cauldron. At the end of the day this system may effectively disenfranchise all Democratic primary voters in total as the Democratic nominee is selected by the super delegates, who by the way, have received campaign money from the very candidates they are to select! Open, free, fair elections; count every vote and don't disenfranchise voters have all been mantras of the Democrats. So how did they come up with this political insider back room deal controlled selection scheme? This is bad for the country.

[Orikinla]

Barack Obama gave some backers money before they endorsed him from Iowa to New Hampshire.
The records are there.
Just search for the results on Google.

Political bribery is bribery.
Both the Clintons and Obamas are guilty.
None of them deserves the endorsement of John Edwards if he is really an honest man.

The way things are going, the Republicans may still be ruling Washington from the Oval Office in 2009.

The Democrats are a masquerade of hypocrisy.
Hypocrisy is ugly.
No wonder the most beautiful women in America are Republicans.:)

[rollingdivision]

There is an argument that the Democratic presidential candidates gave money to super delegates' campaigns before this election cycle so it wasn't given in an effort to bribe. But, the potential presidential candidates surely knew their personal intentions to run for the presidential nomination. So, in fact, this money was given, in large part, as a political favor for future considerations. Is it a Quid pro quo, a bribe, maybe. And that's the problem, we don't know. The Democratic primary system promotes corruption and back room deals.

[GDliberal]

Obama's PAC also contributed to Clinton's 2006 New York re-election. I guess he was trying to buy her superdelegate vote too.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/12/hillarys_slushfund_attack.html

[WilliamWallace]

Perhaps the spool is unwinding?

[foreffectivegovernment]

Here is the real news if you are interested.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/07/AR2007100701435_pf.html

http://nymag.com/news/politics/30634/

So much for his "Change " message.

[WilliamWallace]

It's all about the caysh, kids. Pick your heroes carefully.......and read the fine print.

( * )

[lookforward]

http://perezhilton.com/2008-02-14-fill-in-the-blank-117

[lookforward]

http://perezhilton.com/2008-02-14-fill-in-the-blank-117

[wmdrpa]

BUNK! This is the sloppiest effort at journalism I've seen all week. Not even a little mention that those contributions went towards campaigns for little things like congressional, gubernatorial and local elections. If I had a little more money, I'd support just about every candidate on ActBlue. So what?

[AnninCA]

Not too pretty, eh?

He "gave" 4 times the amount Hillary did.

[JakeS]

Yeah, because Hillary hoarded her leftover money for her presidential campaign.

[NoMoreDrama]

You fail to mention the fact that the people Obama donated to were NOT superdelegates when they received the assistance for their campaigns. You also fail to mention that Clinton gave herself a $10 million donation from her Senate coffers. If anything, it shows how greedy Clinton is, and how Obama has earned his support, by giving his support to his colleagues.

[AnninCA]

Don't even try to sell that BS.

It just is too stupid.

[JakeS]

Good strategy; don't even try to respond to reasoned arguments against you, just call others stupid. Nice.

[ordinaryguy]

*** ALERT ***
Hillary Voter Identified

[AnninCA]

BTW, the report I heard about Clinton was that she's given $200,000.

Don't know where you got your numbers.

[lookforward]

http://perezhilton.com/2008-02-14-fill-in-the-blank-117

i knew obama was a commie

[Ides]

What's the surprise? He has always stated his intention to run a 50-state campaign and do everything he can to help other Democrats get elected. How do you think he was going to do that, by HOPING for it?

[JakeS]

The Obama haters merely assume Obama hopes for everything; they ignore his prolific record of work in elected office.

[hazmaq]

Well this is a misleading but interesting twist of the facts when you follow the story further.
Note first that the figures go back three years to 2005.
1. Hillary was campaining back then, Barack was not.
2. What are 'super delegates'? They are also also congressmen and Democratic candidates. Almost every Congressperson gives money left over in their coffers to help in the campaigns of other Democrats. Barack made one such interesting $4200. 00 contribution - to Hillary.

3. Most of Baracks outside endorsers received nothing from him -nor did he give them money. Whereas almost every insider and outsider like Governors and party officials, exchanged money with the Clintons.

Russ Feingold also has a big nationwide PAC where he specifically donates to help elect more Progressive Dems. He too under this criminal analysis would be accused of buying SD's were he still in the running.
That's who Obama gave his money to - for the election of more Dems -not for IOU's.

Hillary gave virtually nothing but crumbs out of all her wealth to other Dems needing help. That should give you a heads up of 'real' differences between the two.
In almost every case Obama works to the benefit of all including the Clinton's, while they destroy any and all in their way -including their own.

Keep your stories clean kids.

[amberglow]

All keynote convention speakers are pegged to run for president--Obama was spoken of as a future candidate even back then in 04.

Obama gave only to incumbents and Schumer/Emanuel approved challengers--and did not give according to positions on the war or according to any of the criteria he finds so important today. In addition he very publicly supported Lieberman and horrors like Rockefeller and Feinstein too. Lamont, Hackett, Donna Edwards, etc--all ignored along with all other anti-Iraq challengers.

How's that for "change"?

[BUSHsurvivor]

Say it ain't so St. Obama? Say it ain't so?

[berensma]

If they are allowed/encouraged to have PACs to give away extra dollars to other candidates, why does that make Obama *bad* for having given more? If you don't like the system, argue for reform of it, but to me this sounds like business as usual (and Hillary failing to produce, again).

[Trace8089]

But, when your candidate St. Obama bitches about super delegates having free will and we find out he's greasing the super delegates assholes with green love. You can't have it both ways st. Obama.

[Ides]

He's against the super delegates, Clinton is FOR the Super Delegates. Him saying the Super Delegates shouldn't contradict the popular and pledged totals and then paying them despite that is contradictory and doesn't support the assertion that he is buying votes.

[AnninCA]

Don't you care that he's a liar?

[JakeS]

He didn't lie; you really have no idea what you're talking about.