USA Today: Obama Is Surrounded By Lawyers From Lobbying Firms

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.

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[batgirlevi]

Oh, baby!

: p

[vsign]

The photo of Obama that leads this story makes me think Obama needs to be a model in an underwear ad.

He is not Presidential material. Never has been.

Our young people have become glib and superficial like Obama.

He embarrassed me in that debate.

He just embarrasses me.

[batgirlevi]

Then stop picturing him in his undies idiot.

[Sloane7]

I know I'm supposed to comment on this article but can I just say the picture makes Obama look like Mr. Cool? If they're trying to go for sinister, it's just not working, too bad!

[KQuark]

The fact is none of these people were registered lobbyists when they were raising money for Obama. Obama is telling the truth. You cannot swing a dead cat in Washington without hitting someone associated with a lobbyist. The real story should be that Obama is the only candidate not run and wholly owned by lobbyists like Clinton and McCain are. This is just another hit piece telling more lies than truths.

[pc51]

Obama is pure like the driven snow. Listen to the wisom of Obama!

[mediamarv]

Actually, the headline should read Obama and MCCAIN surrounded......

[tbone99]

no, presidential , and congressional candidates surrounded....

[imusintheevening]

USA Today with another worthless trash article. Anyone in Washington that is not an elected official that has any capability to understand government is involved with lobbying the government, or is a lobbyist that masquerades as a cable journalist, with a few paper reporters not included. For that is how change is pursued in our system.

The mere fact that Obama utilizes such experienced persons in fundraising has nothing to do with the evils of lobbyists methods.

Unfortunately, the fact one has to work within the system to change the system should NOT be claimed as an indictment against the motives and desires of Obama to push for such change

[tbone99]

However when Obama boasts he is "the only candidate who isn't taking a dime from Washington lobbyists," that is not the truth.

Unless of course, he only accepts quarters and nickels!

Its all in the fine print.

[jkminwa]

Umm, the article does not say Obama took money from lobbyists. He took money from people who previously were lobbyists, but if you aren't registered as a lobbyist, you aren't a lobbyist, you cannot talk to policticians to try to influence the positions on policy on behalf of clients and, therefore, you cannot be making contributions to politicians as a direct quid pro quo for them acting on policy in a way favorable to your clients. Do some of these contributors benefit from lobbying activities conducted by lawyers in their firms? Yes, just as they benefit from ALL the work performed by the dozens, hundreds or thousands of lawyers in their firms. USA Today only reports the gross receipts to the firms of lobbying because they knew that if they reported the entire gross receipts of listed the law firms, readers would understand how small a percentage of these partners' incomes come from lobbying. Why present a balanced review when GOTCHA journalism sells more papers.

[imusintheevening]

A rather fine point, so are you suggesting that if one is employed as a lobbyist they should not be allowed to make a contribution? Does that include the $3 dollars on the IRS' 1040 form? Obama's point is that he is not taking money from lobbyist firms, so this claim that employees of lobbyists have contributed seems more like a media hit job than a worthwhile fact.

The more salient aspect of the article is that there are lobbyists employed by the campaign to raise large amounts of funds for Obama, but that is just not the same as a lobbyist firm funding a campaign to promote their cause. I guess such a distinction is also a fine point, huh? Let's try it this way: Paying for access and persuasion does not equal being paid to raise campaign funds for a candidate.

[tbone99]

Paying for access and persuasion and "volunteering " to advise the campaign ( an otherwise paid position,with monetary value)/.Remember when Cheney or Scalia goes "duckhunting": with different corporate "friends." the problem is not only that he may be making deals or paying for dinner, but that a corporate rep is getting access that ordinary citizens don't.

Other attys ,not REGISTERED as lobbyists, are paid to represent corporate interests and 'bundle " cash from the corporations under the names of their friends , family and associates or thru' fundraisers. Its not that obscure- its a way around the campaign finance law, Bush used it a lot.

[messstower]

I suppose some think once a lobbyist always a lobbyist.

Is that like once a Criminal always a Criminal?

Schoolyard thinking, do you think this man (with the funny name) would dare try and pull some crap? The best anyone has come up with so far is he like everyone, even the BAD SCARY people.
Well, maybe not Hillary!
Is that like being a UNITER?

[imusintheevening]

USA Today with another worthless trash article. Anyone in Washington that is not an elected official that has any capability to understand government is involved with lobbying the government, or is a lobbyist that masquerades as a cable journalist, with a few paper reporters not included. For that is how change is pursued in our system.

The mere fact that Obama utilizes such experienced persons in fundraising has nothing to do with the evils of lobbyists methods.

Unfortunately, the fact one has to work within the system to change the system should be claimed as an indictment against the motives and desires of Obama to push for such change.

[cramos]

Obama has no opinion he aims to please...read his book....his way of appearing not threatening

[Savanarola]

Cram os and USA today need to join the surface dwellers: Every major law firm has a legislative advocacy practice (lobbying). Then there are the lawyers who practice law at the same firms. For the authors of the scurrilous USA piece and uninformed readers like Ramos to fail to know the difference is to say that the people who lost their pensions and jobs at Enron are the same as Kenneth Lay!
That is why the American electoral dialogue should exclude the majority of Americans. It is nor ELITIST to insist that people know about which they are speaking.

[WorkingClass]

Obama is the artful dodger. Your never gonna know his intentions until after the fact. You just gotta trust him. I'm a Nader voter. I prefer a candidate who says what he means and means what he says. Its hard for me to support a candidate who has no progressive agenda. But if it looks close between him and McCain I will support Obama. Not that you should care, except that, if I am ready to take a chance on Obama then other extremist far left nut jobs might vote for him too.

[texanna]

I was not surprised at the inability of the hard-core Sen. Obama supporters to accept the truth . Folks, if Sen. Obama is the Democratic nominee you all are going to have to take off the rose-colored glasses and get real. Your guy is just as much of a politician as any of the others. His positions and his voting record aren't much different from that other candidate that you would like to think of as Medusa incarnate and he's taken money from the corporatists like everybody else. The only candidates that didn't take that money are out of the race. Oh, and step outside into the big, bad world and discover that there are a whole lot of people that don't idolize your guy, they even -- horrors! -- think Sen. McCain is a better choice. Oh, and please don't go off on my comment as if I were a Sen. Clinton supporter, because I was an Edwards supporter and don't see much difference between the candidates left to us by the corporatist media. I will, however, support whoever ends up as the Democratic nominee because either of these candidates is WAYYY better than the alternative.

[marc1antony]

hope you have dreams of all the dead soldiers that have died in Iraq as a result of the war that Hillary signed us on for... their blood and the tears of their loved ones are a stain on her and all who put our soldiers in harms way in an unjust war. As everyday passes and more soldiers continue to die to appease these corporate war mongers - may you know the tears and heartache of every soldier's family. You are complicit in their deaths when you choose to support a woman who from her own lips last night said she would attack Iran... our soldiers are fighting on two warfronts, and she wants to play chicken with the rest of the world. Let your sons and daughters go over there and die for a cause that has nothing to do with the American people.

You are hypocrite who criticize John McCain, but are one and the same, just the female version of him.

May you know what heartache means, and may you never find comfort or peace with every day that a soldier dies

[Peteyman]

I got one thing to say.....

WHAT PART OF THE WORD "FORMER FEDERAL LOBBYISTS" DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND?!?!?!?!

[Xiexie]

Actually, "former federal lobbyists" makes 3 words.

[tbone99]

LOL , not if you say it in a really frigging frothing frenzy.

[ajax2]

If Obama takes in one nickel less than Hillary in corporate money that's the right direction and good for me and democracy.

[tbone99]

So you can be bought off for five cents?

[AlP]

You really need to keep lying to yourself, don't you?

[Savanarola]

Lying to oneself is morally more sound than lying to everyone else.

[tbone99]

Is it ? so if Bush thinks Iraq is a success, its better than if he's lying to us on purpose? Ask a dead Iraqi.

[robeson]

What USA didn'tsay.

"While small donors are fundamental to both campaigns, they are the backbone of Obama's candidacy - the reason he has shattered fund-raising records and outraised Clinton and the Republican candidates.
"We have created a parallel public financing system where the American people decide if they want to support a campaign, they can get on the Internet and finance it," Obama told supporters at a campaign fund-raiser Tuesday night in Washington.

"And they will have as much access and influence over the course and direction of our campaign that has traditionally [been] reserved for the wealthy and the powerful."

These small donors are not the executives, bankers, and lawyers who typically give the maximum allowable amount per election to presidential hopefuls. They are retirees, teachers, church organists, priests, and firefighters. They are young and old, and they share a conviction that the future of their country is at stake.

Some wait for payday, Social Security, or pension checks before sending another $10 or $25, often over the Internet. Many have given five or 10 times and plan to keep giving. And they are more than just funders - many go on to volunteer." door-knockers and recruiters for their candidates.

[b2008]

I just heard a well educated White man say Barack Obama was condescending because he went to Harvard yet the White man went to Harvard also. So if you White and go to Harvard, that's ok. But if you're Black and go to Harvard, you are become uppity.

It seems that IGNORANCE is in bloom this season. Buds are flowing everywhere. What is wrong with you people. Did COMMON SENSE leave the building?

Can't you see that the MEDIA is making us hate each other and you are allowing it to happen. Fear is terrible and turns good people into imbeciles. We need to band together not pull further apart. Is being a fan of one candidate or the other world all this bickering? Cut it out for Christ's sake.

[AlP]

Where did the guy you were talking to say, "black man went to Harvard"? He was talking about "a person" who went to Harvard. Stop playing the race card.

[tbone99]

In his own words-

"Discussing the issue of campaign finance reform, Obama said, 'The argument is not that I'm pristine, because I'm swimming in the same muddy water, ... The argument is that I know it's muddy and I want to clean it up," Barack Obama said August 16, 2007, in Des Moines, Iowa.[4]

later, AFTER I'm elected.

[jkminwa]

hmmm...did you read the USA Today article? Because their investigation proves Obama's claim that he does not take money from lobbyists. FORMER lobbyists are NOT lobbyists. A person who is registered as a lobbyist IS a lobbyist and can lobby. A person who is not registered as a lobbyist IS NOT a lobbyist and cannot lobby. Obama did not say he didn't take money from partners in large law firms. Pretty simple, really.

[b2008]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exsmFDYyK4U - listen to Hillary's response to lobbyists.

[kenjisan]

you want double speak - this is on video and has double viewing in under 1 hour...

how's that for a top ten list

by tomorrow it will be viral

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exsmFDYyK4U

[majseventh]

Good find with that quote. He is very hypocritical and a politician indeed.

[b2008]

And what is Hillary but the epitome of being a politician. She comes out with a new lie every day just like the farmer who saw a bus crash and when he went to see what had happened, he saw it was a busload of politicians.

The sheriff came out a couple of days later and ask him did he see a busload of politicians and he said Yes. And the sheriff said, what did you do with them? He said, I buried them. The sheriff said "were they all dead"?

He said some of them said they weren't, but you know how those CROOKED POLITICIANS LIE!

[ceasenake]

The candidate of hope has become the candiate of bitterness and money.

[b2008]

And what has your candidate become -- the candidate of honesty and respect?

[kenjisan]

check this video out on dishonesty

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exsmFDYyK4U