People like Clinton were so enamored at having been accepted by the financiers of political parties that he completely ignored his commitment along with Gingrich to reform campaign financing.
It will be interesting to see if Obama will actually take an activist role in reforming campaign finance in a way which will marginalize the 527s etc. he use das his rationale as to why he didnt take the fed financing of presidential campaigns.
Only time will tell but knowing Obama was a community organizer responsible for registering 100,000 new voters in Chicago and realizing how all his efforts could easily be trampled under by some fat cats giving money to the politicians; I believe Obama will try and reform the system.
while audaciously hoping away, maybe this is relevant...
Pam Martens: The Obama Bubble Agenda
That brings us to today's bubble. We are being asked to accept on its face the notion that after more than two centuries of entrenched racism in this country, which saw only five black members of the U.S. Senate, it's all being eradicated with some rousing stump speeches. We are asked to believe that those kindly white executives at all the biggest Wall Street firms, which rank in the top 20 donors to the Obama presidential campaign, after failing to achieve more than 3.5 per cent black stockbrokers over 30 years, now want a black populist president because they crave a level playing field for the American people. The number one industry supporting the Obama presidential bid, by the start of February, -- the crucial time in primary season -- according to the widely respected, nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, was "lawyers/law firms" (most on Wall Street's payroll), giving a total of $11,246,596. This presents three unique credibility problems for the yes-we-can-little-choo-choo-that-could campaign: (1) these are not just "lawyers/law firms"; the vast majority of these firms are also registered lobbyists at the Federal level; (2) Senator Obama has made it a core tenet of his campaign platform that the way he is gong to bring the country hope and change is not taking money from federal lobbyists; and (3) with the past seven ignoble years of lies and distortions fresh in the minds of voters, building a candidacy based on half-truths is not a sustainable strategy to secure the west wing from the right wing. snip... The Obama campaign's populist bubble is underpinned by what, on the surface, seems to be a real snoozer of a story. It all centers around business classification codes developed by the U.S. government and used by the Center for Responsive Politics to classify contributions. Here's how the Center explained its classifications in 2003: "The codes used for business groups follow the general guidelines of the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) codes initially designed by the Office of Management and Budget and later replaced by the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS)..." The Akin Gump law firm is a prime example of how something as mundane as a business classification code can be gamed for political advantage. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Akin Gump ranks third among all Federal lobbyists, raking in $205,225,000 to lobby our elected officials in Washington from 1998 through 2007. The firm is listed as a registered federal lobbyist with the House of Representatives and the Senate; the firm held lobbying retainer contracts for more than 100 corporate clients in 2007. But when its non-registered law partners, the people who own this business and profit from its lobbying operations, give to the Obama campaign, the contribution is classified as coming from a law firm, not a lobbyist.
That brings us to today's bubble. We are being asked to accept on its face the notion that after more than two centuries of entrenched racism in this country, which saw only five black members of the U.S. Senate, it's all being eradicated with some rousing stump speeches.
We are asked to believe that those kindly white executives at all the biggest Wall Street firms, which rank in the top 20 donors to the Obama presidential campaign, after failing to achieve more than 3.5 per cent black stockbrokers over 30 years, now want a black populist president because they crave a level playing field for the American people.
The number one industry supporting the Obama presidential bid, by the start of February, -- the crucial time in primary season -- according to the widely respected, nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, was "lawyers/law firms" (most on Wall Street's payroll), giving a total of $11,246,596.
This presents three unique credibility problems for the yes-we-can-little-choo-choo-that-could campaign: (1) these are not just "lawyers/law firms"; the vast majority of these firms are also registered lobbyists at the Federal level; (2) Senator Obama has made it a core tenet of his campaign platform that the way he is gong to bring the country hope and change is not taking money from federal lobbyists; and (3) with the past seven ignoble years of lies and distortions fresh in the minds of voters, building a candidacy based on half-truths is not a sustainable strategy to secure the west wing from the right wing.
snip...
The Obama campaign's populist bubble is underpinned by what, on the surface, seems to be a real snoozer of a story. It all centers around business classification codes developed by the U.S. government and used by the Center for Responsive Politics to classify contributions. Here's how the Center explained its classifications in 2003:
"The codes used for business groups follow the general guidelines of the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) codes initially designed by the Office of Management and Budget and later replaced by the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS)..."
The Akin Gump law firm is a prime example of how something as mundane as a business classification code can be gamed for political advantage. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Akin Gump ranks third among all Federal lobbyists, raking in $205,225,000 to lobby our elected officials in Washington from 1998 through 2007. The firm is listed as a registered federal lobbyist with the House of Representatives and the Senate; the firm held lobbying retainer contracts for more than 100 corporate clients in 2007. But when its non-registered law partners, the people who own this business and profit from its lobbying operations, give to the Obama campaign, the contribution is classified as coming from a law firm, not a lobbyist.
We should not let the 'perfect be the enemy of the good' in Obama's case and be positive about his potential.
In his first 100 days; he is going to go head first in campaign financing reforms at the same time as crafting stronger regulations over the financial entities which have gotten us all into this mess in addition to many obvious reforms. If its true; The Democrats will have 60 senators then he will get what he wants through quickly but it will be a slog for awhile if there are less than the 60 senators as fillibusters will impede movement of the bills.
For me to be even thinking of the aforementioned only increases my positive outlook that my life and my cildren's will have the potential for being better with Obama our President.
