ABC News is reporting that Obama has outspent Hillary on buying superdelegates – by a big margin:
The study found that Obama has sent more than $694,000 from either his campaign account or his political action committee to superdelegates — the members of Congress, governors, and other party leaders who receive automatic votes at the Democratic National Convention.
About 40 percent of the elected officials who have endorsed Obama have received campaign contributions from him, the center reports. Those superdelegates have received a total of $228,000 from him.
By contrast, Clinton sent out only $195,500 to superdelegates, and only 12 percent of her superdelegates received money from her for their campaigns, according to the report.
So much for changing politics, Mr. Obama.
Obama has contributed more to Democrats than Clinton has. I don’t see how that’s not a point in his favor.
You say CONTRIBUTE, I say BUY.
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p>Huge conflict of interest. HUGE. It’s buying votes.
…just rank hypocrisy.
…isn’t Obama against that kinda thing? I thought I heard something like that somewhere…
…conflict for the SuperDelegate not for Obama.
I suppose that’s true if you accept the premise that all contributions are “buying” a candidate.
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p>But since that premise is false, I disagree with your conclusion.
So if say, a candidate paid American voters thousands of dollars a piece for them to get something they really want, like a new car, or a house (instead of you know, superdelegates and their personal elections) …that would be okay with you?
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p>You don’t see how a vote could be influenced by money?
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p>I can’t even come up with anything witty to reply to your beliefs. I am envious, however, of your simplicity and faith in humanity.
So I suppose you believe that all contributions that Hillary (or Obama for that matter) has received from donors are “buying” them, right? So both candidates have been “bought” by the people/corporations/lobbyists that have donated to them over the years?
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p>I wonder who Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse was “bought” by? After all, Clinton and Obama both gave him $10,000, according that Pew Trusts report. How about when a Clinton and Obama campaigned for Democrats? Did they “buy” them too?
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p>We should encourage prominent Democrats to support other Democrats. You are suggesting that possible or current Presidential candidates shouldn’t donate to fellow Democrats. So much for party building, then.
When American voters contribute to a candidate, they are helping to support their candidate. Their candidate will not be able to in turn place them in a higher powered, more powerful job, or some similar situation. When I contributed to Hillary, I didn’t expect her to return a favor to me when she is elected President.
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p>I just think there should be some rules in place, it just seems like buying votes in disguise as a contribution should not be tolerated and that there is something fundamentally and morally wrong about it, especially when it comes to the election of the President of the United States.
First, it’s not in disguise — the donations have been reported.
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p>Second, you still haven’t shown how a contribution is “buying” a vote.
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p>Third, would you support a policy that says that anyone who is either considering or is currently running for President should be disallowed from donating to fellow Democratic officeholders?
After a certain point, there should definitely be limits imposed, absolutely. The same should hold true for Republicans.
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p>And a contribution is buying a vote because you are giving someone who has the power to appoint you president money. It’s really not that hard to see.
the Republicans don’t have superdelegates.
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p>So basically what you are saying is that Democrats running for President should not contribute to their fellow party members, while Republicans should feel free to donate to their fellow party members.
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p>Seems pretty strange.
perhaps it’s strange to you, but it just seems way to shady to me.
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p>As a democrat, I just don’t understand how this is an acceptable practice. I understand the whole supporting the party thing, but this just goes a little beyond support and a lot closer towards bribery for me.
..is not that all political contributions are “buying” a candidate but that political contributions to a super delegat in or around the primary season may be.
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p>Hard to really make a case of this, since I susplect HRC would have spent as much as BHO if she could have.
cue scary music.
Just to put it in context – the spending has been since 2005 and many of these superdelgates are democratic office holders. You can read the numbers cynically and say that they are trying to buy votes (was Barack really running for President in 2005) or optimistically and say that they have given money to candidates for their races around the Country.
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p>I am not taking a position on this story – but – i think that this is an important point to consider in the discussion.
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p>The report is here
I think this is largely irrelevant, unless it can be shown that the donations were largely made in the last few months or their was a dramatic increase in the rate of donations recently. Then I’d consider it.
Bildeburg runs the world and whomever is selected by them to be pResident of the “united states”.
Let’s make it so that anyone with Presidential ambitions never supports another Democratic candidate for Congress.
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p>That’s a GREAT idea.
because that is the percentage of Hillary’s attempt to “buy” super delegates s…yet you’re only taking shots at Obama. Your silly selectiveness reveals your bias.
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p>Weak.
the finger is pointed at both of them, but i gather more at obama because of the greater magnitude of his donations (i’ll let you put quotation marks, or not, around that word as you see fit).
They’re both guilty.
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p>I just singled out Obama because he’s the one who isn’t supposed to be playing “by the rules” of election cycles, yet he’s the one who contributed nearly a half-million more dollars.
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p>Just pointing out another Obama hypocrisy.
This is Bullshit.
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p>Clinton and Obama both had slam dunk races in their last election (Clinton in 06, Obama in 04). They should have kept the money they raised rather than giving it out to candidates in tough races? Candidates like Jim Webb, Sheldon Whitehouse, Jon Tester, Claire McCaskill and Sherrod Brown? They should have sat back and said, “well, I’m going to run for president and helping to take back the Congress would be unseemly.”!?!?
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p>We want candidates with easy races to spread their money around. Just looking at Obama’s Senate giving, the majority of the money he gave went to challengers and incumbents with tough races. That is exactly what I want him to do. It’s not even like he restricted it to people in early primary states a la Mitt Romney. He raised a lot of money in his race against Alan Keyes — didn’t need it all for obvious reasons — and used it to help take back the Congress. Sen. Clinton did the same thing — she’s a fundraising dynamo and didn’t need much to cream the no-name the NY GOP put up against her in ’06.
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p>Besides all that, do you honestly think that either of those candidates thought that this election would come down to the superdelegates? After 2004, the CW was that after New Hampshire it would pretty much be over and by Super Tuesday everything would be wrapped up in a pretty bow. That’s why all those states were clamoring to get to the head of the line!
In past elections, this hasn’t posed a problem. In this one, it does, because it HAS come down to the superdelegates.
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p>Whether it was expected or not, this is the situation in which we now find ourselves, and I can’t help to think that it seems a bit more like under-the-table dealings than fair practice.
But you can’t say that any donation before Super Tuesday is some sort of attempt to buy Superdelegate votes because NO ONE thought it would come down to superdelegates.
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p>The fact remains that every Democratic member of Congress is a superdelegate. Maybe if Sens Clinton and Obama were lining the pockets of DNC members all these years you’d have a point , but complaining that they donated their campaign funds or raised money to take back the Congress is just too much.
that’s what i love about America…I don’t have to agree with you one bit.
The donations to the super delegates were an insurance policy to keep the love flowing in a tight race. And I don’t care what the polls said, a woman presidential candidate is never a “sure thing,” and Mr. Obama had to know that, which is why he kept spreading the money around. Forgive my cynicism, but that’s the game.