Obama Says Big Corporations Influencing Our Elections

Target recently got snagged for supporting conservative candidates on the sly, giving money through an organization called Minnesota Forward. The CEO ended up apologizing. The people within a corporation can support whomever they want. But corporations are blobs. They shouldn't be able to throw their profits at elections. Once again, republicans are siding with the blobs.

Obama's Schedule July 27

In the morning, Obama has his usual briefings.
11 am eastern, Obama meets with republicans and democrats in Congress.
12 pm, he'll make a statement to the press, probably regarding the Senate vote on the Disclose Act. Live stream.
12:20 pm, Obama lunches with House members.
3:05 pm, Obama welcomes Warner Robins Softball champions.
4 pm, Obama meets with Timothy Geithner (treasury).
4:30 pm, Obama meets with Robert Gates (defense).
7 pm, Obama attends a DNC fundraiser in NYC.

Obama Raises $30 Million in June

NYT: Both of the presumptive presidential nominees have been spending more time lately amassing their campaign war chests, and we’re beginning to see some of the results of their efforts. The McCain campaign said on Thursday that they had taken in more $22 million in June – the campaign’s strongest month so far. And today the Wall Street Journal hears that Senator Barack Obama raised about $30 million last month.

Hillary is Still Lending Herself Money

$6.4 million. worse, i heard on nbc this morning that as part of peace deal, when hillary steps aside, obama may have to raise funds to pay off her debts! people who are still funding her campaign must be nuts. another part of the peace deal: seating michigan and florida delegates.

cnn: Democrat Hillary Clinton has loaned her presidential race $6.4 million over the last month, bringing the total amount of money she has lent herself to $11.4 million.

And she is willing to lend herself more money, top adviser Howard Wolfson told reporters Wednesday, a day after Clinton eked out a narrow victory over Sen. Barack Obama in Indiana's Democratic primary but lost to him by a landslide in North Carolina.

The $11.4 million she has lent her campaign this year is about the same as the amount she earned from book sales and her Senate salary, Wolfson said.

Hillary Has Not Paid Her Debts

do we want a president who can't pay her debts?

ap: But Clinton had debts of $10.3 million at the start of the month, much of it money owed to her main polling, phone banking and advertising consultants. The largest single debt was to the firm of her demoted former chief strategist, Mark Penn.

She also owed $1.17 million to The Spoken Hub, a phone bank operation, and $528,000 to ad maker Mandy Grunwald's firm.

But many of those owed money — vendors from Pennsylvania to Iowa to Texas — were not political insiders.

"We desperately need to see payments so we can pay our vendors," said Chris Menichetti, the founder and president of Endeavor Audio and Lighting Services in Dickson City, Pa., who was owed $43,484 by the campaign.

Still, several other firms contacted Monday said they did not consider the campaign delinquent on payments and were confident they would be paid.

"We will, of course, be honoring the debts in the coming weeks and months, and that goes for whatever our debts are and to whomever they are to," Clinton communications director Howard Wolfson said Monday.

For now, Clinton's red ink is less of an obstacle than her inability to keep up with Obama's prodigious fundraising. Obama raised $41 million in March, twice as much as Clinton. His nearly 5-1 edge in cash on hand gave him a rich base from which to challenge Clinton in Pennsylvania, which holds its primary on Tuesday.

Obama Would Be First Un-Beholden President

this story from the nation tells how obama would be the first president to actually represent the people. read on

from the nation: Nonetheless, Obama has a signal accomplishment to his credit, a substantial one, which may change the shape of politics. If elected he will be the first to enter the office without financial backing from the major business, industrial or professional groups with their PACs, their contribution bundlers and lobbyists. That first day, which Hillary Clinton has made famous, will find Obama not owing a thing to the big money pressure groups. You would have to go back a century and a half to name an incoming president with so few debts to repay.
Obama's base of a million or more individual contributors has made him a free man, politically speaking. If his accomplishment is not a one-off feat--if it is something that others can replicate--then he will, with a bow to Howard Dean, have changed the financial basis of presidential politics in the United States. That alone ought to put Obama in the history books, assuming that what he has done establishes a pattern and is not a unique feat, never to be repeated.

Entering the White House free of the usual obligations is not enough to enable President Obama to carry out the changes he hints at in his campaign. Having no favors to repay gets him started but the groups he did not have solicit for money will still have the power to checkmate him in Congress through their campaign contributions, mailings and advertising. Obama could end up a politically isolated President who will not be able "to turn the page," as he often puts it.

His page-turning has to do with an approach foreign to conventional politicians. Obama's speeches are peppered with references to governing from the bottom up, as contrasted to Hillary Clinton, who would govern from the top down. More than health plans or NAFTA or who was against the war first, it is this difference in thinking that most divides the two figures.

The difference is exemplified in Clinton's saying "...Dr. King's dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, when he was able to get [it] through Congress.... The power of that dream became real in people's lives because we had a president who said, 'We are going to do it,' and actually got it accomplished."

She was unjustly attacked for dissing King. Nevertheless, with those words Clinton showed how top-down people think. They believe that President Johnson got the law passed, although a bottom-up person would tell her that it was the people, tens of thousands of them, marching, protesting and being beaten over the head, who generated the political pressure which forced the act through Congress. If the credit goes to anyone, it goes to the people whom Martin Luther King Jr., led across the bridge in Selma, Alabama. read more cause it's good.

Ralph Nader To Haunt Obama?

ralph nader, founder of public citizen, and one time presidential candidate, may want to shake up the system again and run for president. he's expected to announce something along those lines tomorrow on meet the press. the candidate he's likely to go after is obama.
why?
because so-called "bundlers" have contributed more to obama's campaign than any other.

a bundler is a name given to wealthier people--ceos, hedge fund managers and groups--- who pool large sums of money to contribute. then there are "lobbyist bundlers," who are wealthy types registered as lobbyists. Obama has fewest of these.

even though mccain has the most bundlers and most lobbyist bundlers, obama has raised the most money from his bundlers and lobbyist bundlers.

according to whitehouseforsale.org, a public citizen website:
obama has raised: $137,431,963 from 359 "bundlers" and 9 "lobbyist bundlers."
clinton: $118,360,205 from 322 bundlers and 19 lobbyist bundlers.
mccain: $48,700,196 from 468 bundlers and 59 lobbyist bundlers.

nader's real goal seems to be revamping campaign financing, which is a good thing. here is public citizen's solution:

Once campaigns make an oral or written agreement designating a person as a fundraiser and provide the fundraiser with some form of tracking mechanism, the campaign should be required to disclose the details of that person’s fundraising success as part of the campaign’s filings with the Federal Election Commission. Disclosure reports on bundlers should contain the following:
The name, address, occupation and employer of each bundler, each contribution of more than $200 raised by the bundler, the original source and date of each contribution of more than $200 raised by the bundler, and total contributions raised by the bundler for each reporting period.
This would open the books for all to see who raised large sums of campaign money for the candidate.

but nader will probably start by knocking the candidate with the most money, obama.

obama likely has been receiving the funding because, like his other set of supporters, those of us who are not rich, they are inspired and want to see him as the next president. but bundlers are perceived to be people who demand favors for their donations. let's hope obama's not promising favors in exchange for money. i give obama the benefit of the doubt on this one and i believe he's said he hasn't solicited these funds.

the names of the bundlers needn't be disclosed, which adds to the perception of corporations trying to get something in return for their donations, and public citizen is right. there needs to be reform.

from whitehouseforsale.org: Bundlers who direct money to presidential candidates tend to be first in line for plum ambassador positions and other political appointments. Industry titans and lobbyists are more likely to receive preferential treatment from elected officials if they raised large amounts of money for them.

Obama the Better Executive

which candidate has done a better job running their campaign, including raising money and getting more people involved? sen. barack obama.

more than 450,000 people have donated to the obama campaign since the beginning of the year and he's gotten more results for the money. why is this important? because it says what kind of leader he will be.

here is recent financing information for obama and clinton. new financing reports are due feb. 20.
time

obama's donor breakdown by %, actual number and dollar amount

how obama is spending the money

top contributors google, goldman sachs, university of california and harvard university are some of obama's top contributors

clinton's top contributors goldman sachs, morgan stanley, microsoft, and emily's list (a group that elects pro-female candidates)

how clinton is spending the money

obama's contributions by geography

clinton's contributions by geography

look up by donor, zip code, state and candidate.

what does this tell you?

clinton gets $764,000 from lobbyists. casinos, banks, healthcare and HMOs, hedge funds, insurance, lawyers, oil and gas, pharmaceuticals, real estate, securities and investments, telephone, tv/nusic/movies, tobacco, computers sectors like clinton better than obama in terms of donations

obama gets $87,000 from lobbyists.

obama leads in two categories: education, retired donors.