Yahoo Answers is shutting down on May 4th, 2021 (Eastern Time) and the Yahoo Answers website is now in read-only mode. There will be no changes to other Yahoo properties or services, or your Yahoo account. You can find more information about the Yahoo Answers shutdown and how to download your data on this help page.
Trending News
How much money will Barack Obama take from lobbyists and PACs?
He claimed to not take any, but his record in the Senate tells another story:
From the Boston Globe:
A Globe review of Obama's campaign finance records shows that he collected hundreds of thousands of dollars from lobbyists and PACs as a state legislator in Illinois, a US senator, and a presidential aspirant.
In Obama's eight years in the Illinois Senate, from 1996 to 2004, almost two-thirds of the money he raised for his campaigns -- $296,000 of $461,000 -- came from PACs, corporate contributions, or unions, according to Illinois Board of Elections records. He tapped financial services firms, real estate developers, healthcare providers, oil companies, and many other corporate interests, the records show.
Obama's US Senate campaign committee, starting with his successful run in 2004, has collected $128,000 from lobbyists and $1.3 million from PACs, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonprofit organization that tracks money in politics. His $1.3 million from PACs represents 8 percent of what he has raised overall. Clinton's Senate committee, by comparison, has raised $3 million from PACs, 4 percent of her total amount raised, the group said.
In addition, Obama's own federal PAC, Hopefund, took in $115,000 from 56 PACs in the 2005-2006 election cycle out of $4.4 million the PAC raised, according to CQ MoneyLine, which collects Federal Election Commission data. Obama then used those PAC contributions -- including thousands from defense contractors, law firms, and the securities and insurance industries -- to build support for his presidential run by making donations to Democratic Party organizations and candidates around the country.
Well, the others have ADMITTED to taking money from lobbyists, isn't it better to just tell the truth? I don't support Hillary either, I just want to see if others have looked as closely as these people running as I have tried to do, we are pretty much out of luck this election!
I don't know about Ron Paul BUT shouldn't Obama be clear on his record?
wow Jessica you are smart, I am glad you shared all of that, I was looking at his Senate record, I just fingured he hadn't excepted soft money while running during this election for President, BUT you proved otherwise! Thanks....
9 Answers
- Anonymous1 decade agoFavorite Answer
He's a hypocrite & oppurtunist, critcizing money in politics.. then happily accepting contributions from PAC's, lobbyists & corporations..
Although the article you cited is referring to his Senate campaign.. but I'll post info regarding his presidential campaign & current financers
"The junior Senator from Illinois denounces the corrosive influence of private political cash on U.S. democracy while cozying up to Chicago's notoriously corrupt Big Money Mayor Richard M. Daley (with whom he shares the same high-priced campaign consultant (David Axlerod) and raking in campaign largesse from wealthy world-capitalist interests. His top career sponsors include Goldman Sachs, Exelon (the world's leading nuclear plant operator), the Soros Fund Management, J.P Morgan Chase & Co., leading corporate law and lobbying firms (Kirkland & Ellis and Skadden, Arps, Sidley Austin LLP and others), top Chicago investment interests (including Henry Crown & Co and Aerial Capital Management) and the like.
Obama's reliance on such deep-pockets supporters helps explain why he voted for a business-driven "tort reform" bill that rolled back working peoples' ability to obtain reasonable redress and compensation from misbehaving corporations. It is certainly part of why he opposed an amendment to the Bankruptcy Act that would have capped credit card interest rates at 30 percent. It is undoubtedly related to his vote against a bill that would have killed an amendment to the 2005 energy bill that Taxpayers for Common Sense and Citizens Against Government Waste called "one of the worst provisions in this massive piece of legislation." Under the amendment, which passed with Obama's help, U.S. taxpayers are providing millions of dollars in loan guarantees to power plant operators. They "risk losing billions of dollars if the companies default," as Ken Silverstein wrote in the November, 2006 issue of Harper's Magazine ("Barack Obama Inc.: The Birth of a Washington Machine").
Special interest influence is certainly behind Obama's constant plugging of federally subsidized ethanol ("E-85") as an environmentally friendly "alternative fuel." Reliance on corporate cash and power is also likely related to Obama's opposition to the introduction of single-payer national health insurance on the curious grounds that such a welcome social-democratic change would lead to employment difficulties for workers in the private insurance industry and that "voluntary" solutions are "more consonant" with "the American character" than "government mandates." The latter judgment is advanced despite the fact that a large U.S. majority supports government-mandated universal health insurance.
Obama, it is worth noting, received $708,000 from medical and insurance interests between 2001 and 2006, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. His wife Michelle, a fellow Harvard Law graduate, is a Vice President for Community and External Affairs at the University of Chicago Hospitals, a position that paid her $273, 618 in 2006. For what it's worth, she also received $51,200 for attending a few board meetings of TreeHouse Foods, a giant firm where she was made a director after Obama was elected to the U.S. Senate.
One day after Obama denounced Big Money control of U.S. politics in Iowa City, Iowa, the Los Angeles Times reported that Obama "raised more than $1 million in the first three months of his presidential campaign from law firms and companies that have major lobbying operations in the nation's capital." Obama has also received a combined $170,000 so far this year from financial giants Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, who together spent $4.6 million on federal lobbying in 2006.
"Obama received more than two-thirds (68 percent) of his first quarter 2007 fundraising total ‘from donations of $1000 or more.'"
The Los Angeles Times also reported that Obama received more than two-thirds (68 percent) of his first quarter 2007 fundraising total "from donations of $1000 or more." Obama has "played up populist themes of [campaign finance] reform," trumpeting his "large number of small donations" and claiming (in the Senator's words) to be "launch[ing]a fundraising drive that isn't about dollars.". But his astonishing first-quarter campaign finance haul of $25.7 million included $17.5 million from "big donors" ($1000 and up) - a sum higher than the much more genuinely populist and remarkably pro-labor John Edwards' total take ($14 million) from all donors.
According to Chicago Sun Times columnist Lynn Sweet, "Obama talks about transforming politics and touts the donations of ‘ordinary' people to his campaign, a network of more than 100 elite Democratic ‘bundlers' is raising millions of dollars for his White House bid. The Obama campaign prefers the emphasis be on the army of small donors who are giving - and raising - money for Obama. In truth, though, there are two parallel narratives - and the other is that Obama is also heavily reliant on wealthy and well-connected Democrats."
Source(s): http://www.blackagendareport.com/ind...=... http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/obam... http://politifact.com/truth-o-meter/arti... http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?tit... http://rawstory.com/news/2007/LA_Times_O - texasjewboy12Lv 61 decade ago
He'll take in as much as anyone, and probably more than most, but he'll do it indirectly, via law firms and other corporations that lobby rather than from individual lobbyists. I guess you have to be a lawyer to see the difference. That's why I'm through voting for lawyers, period!
- Anonymous1 decade ago
Globe did not report that he took money from lobbyists, only PACs as they all do. And don't start that Ron Paul doesn't stuff. Maybe he should and then he might could be actually in serious contention for the White House. And his run for the Senate is over; he's now running for President.
Source(s): bostonglobe.com - 1 decade ago
Well... you seem to know more than any of us on that issue! Lobbyists aren't all bad but I agree he gets way to much money from them!
R.P. 2008!
- Anonymous1 decade ago
Google it
- Anonymous1 decade ago
Barack Obama will continue to extort as MUCH as he possibly can.
- AlLv 61 decade ago
if you follow the money trail from obama.....i'd be willing to bet Oprah is his source of his fundraising.
- 1 decade ago
Do you work for Hillary Clinton or are you in love with Obama? You're quite obsessed with him.
- Kirk NeelLv 41 decade ago
Well good for him. I guess that meens there are people or companies that believe in him.....