So, this week, Hillary Clinton strongly defended the taking of money from lobbyists. Those lobbyists, after all, represent “real people” — nurses, social workers and so forth. They also represent pharmaceutical companies, health insurance companies … Seriously, does she imagine we’re not able to fill in the blanks on that sad-sack answer of hers?
Hillary has been getting kudos for her polished, professional presentation in these events. And she’s really an excellent politician — heretofore thoroughly underrated, as I suspected. (I don’t care who you are, you don’t just cruise into New York State and land a Senate seat — she worked for it.)
So I don’t doubt her preparation and skill. I just think her ideas are flat-out messed up. Like her refusal to apologize for her Iraq war vote, this was obviously a carefully considered, strongly stated statement of principle, which utterly glosses over the near-total takeover — indeed looting — of our democracy by moneyed interests. Her response only makes sense if that were not the way things are run these days.
Clinton asked the audience to refer to her 30+ year career to assess how much she’s influenced by special-interest lobbyists. But based on the Clinton history of the 1990’s, you might even think that she has no problem with money-driven campaigning and policy-making. (Another reason against Clinton nostalgia as a motivating factor in the primary.) And certainly based on her recent fundraising, there’s no reason to give her a free pass.
And as Jon Stewart noted, the idea that she’s not influenced by lobbyists is self-contradicting, and in any event beggars belief. Anyone who believes that candidates — from dog-catcher to President — are unaffected by the origin of campaign donations, is kidding himself. Hillary’s kidding us by telling us just to trust in her innate goodness — that this is just the natural way of things.
This tells us that her considered opinions are totally at cross-purposes with any kind of populist (“people-powered”) politics. She was speaking to a group of people who by and large don’t have lobbyists acting on their behalf; and defended the outsize access and influence of those groups that are fortunate enough to “pay to play”.
She meant every word she said — and it’s a gaffe, a big one.
is that there’s no stopping point. Lobbyists, like everyone else, can give only $2,300 (or $4,600 for primary + general, or whatever the rule is). These candidates are raising millions upon millions of dollars. No one’s paltry 4,600 bucks is going to make a damn bit of difference in terms of influence. There are much, much bigger forces at work.
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So Obama and Edwards won’t take money from Joe the registered lobbyist. But they’re sure taking money from Joe’s clients — lots of it. Because some of Joe’s clients — like big companies and big unions (and yes, Hillary is quite correct that teachers’ unions, nurses’ unions, etc. all have top-flight DC lobbyists working for them) — have a lot of people associated with them, each of whom can give that $4,600. And that’s where the big bucks really are, right?
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So if the idea is that campaign contribution = bribery, it does not, and cannot, stop with the lobbyists. In fact, lobbyists themselves are a tiny part of the problem, because in the great scheme of things, there aren’t that many of them, so it doesn’t add up to that much money.
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But we don’t have public financing. So you’ve got to raise the money from somewhere. What’s your solution? How does a candidate stay pure, yet compete? If Obama and Edwards take money from a bunch of people who work for Eli Lilly, is that so much better than taking money from the lobbyist who represents Eli Lilly?
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Yes. Yes it is. I can’t speak much for Eli Lilly, but I have worked for Home Depot and for Procter & Gamble, both as an hourly wage earning blue collar type and as a management, white collar type. In both cases, by and large, the political interests of the employees seemed to have little to do with the interests of their employers.
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You think union workers on the line are aligned with the CEO? How about secretaries? Janitors? Do you think the scientists are digging on the GOP’s take on science? The employees all care about their employer [company]’s health, but only in that it applies to their job. Furthermore, people also have other interests beyond making money: health care, education, the environment, and so forth.
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A lobbyist is paid to help a company maximize shareholder value. An employee is far more complex in motive and interests.
It’s such hypocrisy. Obama and Edwards go after the exact same channels for donations, through the backdoor, tapping the same inner circles of donors. Obama has state lobbyists and former federal lobbyists on his staff. They solicit donations from former lobbyists, spouses, partner’s, etc.. You’d have to be naive to think he raised 30 million selling tee shirts.
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but I’d be willing to bet that if you looked at the employees of Eli Lilly, including the sub-$200 donors, the majority of donors will have exactly zero influence on the candidate. Perhaps even the majority of dollars, depending on the company and the candidate. The same goes for lots of companies, particularly if they’re involved in academic/research fields…
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a donor is not a donor is not a donor. The devil is very much in the details.
Obama is a co-sponsor of the Durbin/Specter Fair Elections Act, which provides a public financing mechanism for Senate campaigns. Hillary is not.
David, we’re talking about $400,000. OK, I know she’s gotten many millions so far this year, but come on, that’s a lot of money. And I totally reject the idea that that has no effect on policymaking.
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And you kind of prove my point for me: It’s not just the lobbyist giving cash; it’s the bundling of donations, the pull of being able to get a bunch of 4-figure donations that really creates influence. And yes, as stomv says, that’s totally different from a random employee making a random donation, although that may well be tied up in her sense of self-interest vis-a-vis her employer.
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Jay found a great quote from Sen. Paul Simon that cuts through the BS:
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Again, this is also about tone, and context. If Hillary doesn’t understand how outraged so many of us are at money-driven politics, then her support is going to erode in favor of someone who shows a bit more sensitivity.
First, $400K isn’t going to make or break a $50 million or whatever it is campaign operation. It’s just not. So I stand by its being small beer. Second, $400,000 represents the aggregate from all lobbyists, right? But of course, those lobbyists represent a whole bunch of different firms and industries, many with competing agendas. So it’s meaningless to say that she’s being unduly “influenced by lobbyists,” because “lobbyists” don’t speak with one voice — quite the contrary, they compete intensely with each other for access and favor among lawmakers and regulators.
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Bundling, however, is a different issue. That’s not the lobbyist him/herself writing the check, right? (Or at least it doesn’t have to be.) That’s the lobbyist (or someone else) acting as an enabler, saying to the candidate “here’s $500,000 from a single firm, or industry, consisting of a whole bunch of smallish checks.” But as far as I know, neither Obama nor Edwards nor anyone else has said, or even could say, that he won’t take “bundled” donations. After all, it’s just a collection of individual donations from individual Americans, none of whom is a lobbyist, right?
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So if you can show me where Obama or Edwards says that they will not accept donations from anyone who works for an industry or union that has hired lobbyists to represent them in DC, then I’ll be persuaded that there’s a meaningful difference between what they’re doing and what Hillary is doing. (More on Obama’s fundraising, which recent stories in the Globe among others have suggested is less than pure as the driven snow.) ‘Til then, not so much.
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Yglesias has a shorter version of my argument:
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One more thing: apparently Obama worked with Feingold to get the bundler-disclosure provision into the ethics bill. If that’s so, good for him — that’s an important accomplishment.
I am not taking the position that Obama or Edwards have substantially better practices than Hillary. My eyes are open; they are all necessarily playing what I consider to be a totally corrupt game. (I still think $400,000 is a lot of money.)
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But insofar as Obama and Edwards acknowledge the problem by taking that small measure — incomplete and loophole-ridden, yes — they come out ahead of her. And Obama in particular has made campaign finance reform a good part of his public record, going back to Illinois. Hillary, on the other hand, gets fundraisers from Rupert Murdoch, is one of the top recipients of health insurer bucks, and on and on.
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So you can make the argument that when you count the dollars, there’s not that much difference (I’m not sure I agree); but the difference in emphasis, combined with the respective histories of the candidates, is a good indication of what you can expect in the future. Obama and Edwards think it’s a problem. Hillary doesn’t. Period.
They border on the messianic. To read them, you’d think neither of them had ever taken a nickel from someone who wanted something in exchange. Yet you acknowledge that, in fact, what they’re actually doing isn’t all that different from what Hillary is doing. I am not persuaded that the Edwards/Obama approach — talk the talk, but don’t really walk the walk — is so much better.
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In any event, at the end of the day, the number of people who care about this stuff is actually quite small — most people are much more concerned about leadership and about policy than about who’s writing the checks. And by and large, the people that care a lot about it are not people inclined to support Hillary anyway. So as a strategic matter, it’s likely a wash.
What’s the legislative record? And what’s the stated intent? Certainly in the case of Obama, the two add up to something that Clinton doesn’t have.
as I said upthread, Obama’s legislative record is good, and that’s certainly worth something. The “stated intent,” however, doesn’t do much for me, for the reasons I’ve already explained.
You could have some kind of anonymous donation scheme. Something where people would give money to support a campaign, but in a way that prevents the campaign from knowing who gave the money. Then anyone could claim to have donated lots of money to the campaign, and there is no way to verify which claims are true and which ones are not. It means that you can support politicians you like, but you can’t count on them knowing that you are a major donor. There are a lot of issues to work out before something like that could actually happen though.
…many hundreds of dollars in bills, it is difficult to hide the donation. As I’m sure you are aware, checks are processed and recorded via various clearinghouses and the Federal Reserve system.
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Checks are not anonymous.
nor should it. It’s enormously beneficial for the public to be able to look up who has donated to whom. And a system of “anonymous” donations would never work, since back channels have a funny way of finding things like that out.
“Lobbyist” is a scary word to through a around, but the only difference between a “lobbyist” and a “bundler” is that a lobbyist is more public about their agenda. As long as all the major candidates are engaged in bundling — which they are — nobody has a right to point fingers.
It’s clear she’s not about running from the grassroots or working for transformative change – one reason she’s not my first choice among the Dems.
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It’s probably also true, though, that taking or refusing lobbyist and PAC contributions is symbolic. The candidates who are refusing them – Obama and Edwards, don’t know about the others? – still must raise an obscene amount of money to compete.
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That said, I like them for making the effort. The symbolism speaks to their aspirations for their campaigns and what they think is important.
I’ve been to quite a few fundraisers over the years, and I’ve frequently been in “the room”, the place where high dollar donors (maxed out, 2300/person) meet the candidate before the event.
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At these events, the candidate will make their way through the room, take photos, and shake hands, and have, if you’re lucky, 30 seconds of conversation with you.
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So, in that 30 seconds, a lobbyist who gave money is going to make up Hillary’s (or any candidate’s) mind? Really? You’ve got to be kidding me.
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It’s different for candidates at lower levels, who don’t have to raise such astronomical sums. If you make the argument that a Congressman who needs to raise 500k to get elected or re-elected is willing to listen more to someone who gave him money than someone who didn’t, maybe.
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But lets not pretend that a maxed out lobbyist donor will get the red carpet rolled out at the White House anytime they want to come by and bend the President’s ear.
So, this week, Hillary Clinton strongly defended the taking of money from lobbyists. Those lobbyists, after all, represent “real people” — nurses, social workers and so forth. They also represent pharmaceutical companies, health insurance companies…
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You wish to ignore the fact that these pharma companies and health insurance companies employ people and it is those people that you have to persuade that they will not lose their livelihoods in the event of a rather radical (not a bad word) change in health care financing might come about in the USofA.
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That is your problem for universal health care financing (a term that I use intentionally). That is what sHillary failed to recognize in 1993-94. And that, plus her vote for the AUMF in Iraq (without acknowledgement of her error) are only two reasons why I reject her out of hand.
I don’t ignore that fact at all. She’s right — there are real people behind all of those industries, and they’re good jobs. The question is whether the people with the best, highest-donating-and-bundling lobbyists deserve to have their interests weighed more heavily than the rest of us, which happens all the time. In fact, that’s the way things work these days.
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Re: health care: Let’s not ignore the massive debt, death, dislocation and impoverishment that the current system encourages and creates. That’s more spread out around various industries, and is therefore seen as some vague systemic problem — a force of economic nature, if you will — rather than the effect of one industry holding the rest hostage.
Re: health care: Let’s not ignore the massive debt, death, dislocation and impoverishment that the current system encourages and creates.
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…but there apparently isn’t enough political support to change the current structure in the US. So, in the USofA, the health care system will continue to cost approximately 50% more than most of the rest of the industrialized world.
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I’ll avoid my usual swipe at sHillary because of her defalcations in 1993-94 on that issue, but I will mention that the financial dislocations in the “sub prime” (let’s avoid the euphemism: it’s high risk”) mortgage market in the US is having repercussions elsewhere. It is threatening to bring down a financial institution in Germany (IKW–never heard of it, but it is somewhere up north). It is a front page story on todays Sueddetsche Zeitung.
She’s right — there are real people behind all of those industries, and they’re good jobs.
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and one that you apparently want to ignore. Those real people are apparently all well compensated–although I can assure you, that they are not all well trained. But are they all needed to supply health care? That is the question. And that is the point that I have been beating on here for months, and that is what you apparently want to ignore. The expansion of persons who purport to supply health care in the US strains credulity.
One man’s……..is another’s……Hillary has reassured a lot of us old-fashioned democrats lately. And, surprise,surpise, my dear folks, we are still the majority in the Dem party, and we shall decide who is nominated and elected. Have fun talking to yourselves.
You good ol’ fashioned Dems think K-Street culture is just A-OK, huh? Really? Moderate=pro-lobbyist?
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You know, I heard someone say yesterday on On Point that this was an example of how Hillary is really running the general campaign already, and everyone else is running a primary campaign, i.e. tacking left. But this isn’t even a left/right/center issue — unless you can convince me of the great affection for lobbyists in the general electorate that we hard-leftists just don’t “get”.
A gaffe is an accident, like “I am not a crook” or “I was brainwashed” or “I am in control.”
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A deliberate gaffe is a gambit. I leave it to others to analyze exactly what this one is for (I couldn’t play that video to save my life), but seems as though she wants to frame all lobbying as equally noble (and ennobling) political speech.
That means you take a short-term defeat for a long-term gain. I don’t think Hillary will realize any long-term gain from this — just the opposite.
…a candidate emerges who doesn’t make some misstatements in the campaign it will be remarkable. Certainly Edwards, Obama and Hillary Clinton have had that problem.
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The issue becomes what does it say about them and their priorities. The idea that somehow Hillary is standing up for little people by taking money from lobbyists is ridiculous. And this is one we will see in commercials in the general should she get that far. Remember Bill Clinton at the Texas event when he thought he was privately telling rich people that he raised their taxes too much?
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Hillary is trying to triangulate before she gets the nomination. I am not impressed.
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Not likely, unless any of the Republicans are swearing off lobbyist donations. I hadn’t heard that they are.
Hypocrisy has never, ever stopped the GOP from running a negative ad.