The following little comment on the Hillary ‘lobbyist’ ‘defense’ led to this post on who’s giving what $$$ to whom:
WTF are you getting on about? (none / 0)
Obama, Clinton, Edwards, Dodd, Richardson and Biden all receive a great deal of money more or less from ‘corporations’, from the upper-class professions, and from the wealthy elite generally.
But the real problem is not that legalized bribery, but ‘Washington lobbyists’? That molehill inspires Booman’s “Do we really hate ourselves this much?”
They’re ALL money whores, and there’s no such thing as a good money whore. And, my sympathies, Arthur G, but you need to take a good look at Hillary campaign donations. They are directly below. And the Obama lovers need to look at his $$$ too. Edwards, well, his whore $$$ aren’t quite as bad, he doesn’t play with all comers (or they don’t wanna play with him), so maybe he’s not as much of a whore as those other two. And as for “I’m for public financing” Chris Dodd, well, check out the money numbers!
BDB states the obvious over at talkleft (emphasis added):
… all of the frontrunners take money from corporate interests. I honestly doubt that the Wall Street executives who back Obama or the trial lawyers who back Edwards have vastly different policy preferences on the issues facing their businesses than the lobbyists those same folks hire. You either go with publicly financed campaigns (which all of the leading candidates seem to support) or you don’t.
Opensecrets.org (that’s right, it’s an open secret people!), tells us all we need to know, in its Contributions from Selected Industries (as of July 15, 2007) charts.
Interested in health care reform? Check out who the Pharmo-Medico Lobby contributes to:
Insurance Industry:
Christopher J. Dodd: $592,950
Hillary Clinton: $341,240
Barack Obama: $258,172
Bill Richardson: $91,183
John Edwards: $83,737
Joseph R. Biden: $61,325
Dennis J. Kucinich: $500Pharmaceuticals/Health Products:
Hillary Clinton: $172,150
Barack Obama: $160,572
Christopher J. Dodd: $56,700
Joseph R. Biden Jr.: $10,500
Bill Richardson: $7,150
John Edwards: $6,758
Dennis J. Kucinich: $800Health Professionals:
Hillary Clinton: $998,851
Barack Obama: $701,993
John Edwards: $254,297
Bill Richardson: $131,225
Joseph R. Biden: $74,050
Christopher J. Dodd: $66,250
Dennis J. Kucinich: $7,900
Mike Gravel: $1,000
Want a candidate who’ll fight for workers and middle class folks instead of for the banks and Wall Street? Check out these campaign donation figures:
Hedge Funds:
Christopher J. Dodd: $726,950
Hillary Clinton: $703,600
Barack Obama: $652,105
John Edwards: $218,290
Bill Richardson: $85,900
Joseph R. Biden: $28,300
Securities & Investment:
Hillary Clinton: $3,330,325
Barack Obama: $3,156,174
Christopher J. Dodd: $2,200,916
John Edwards: $668,590
Bill Richardson: $351,000
Joseph R. Biden: $250,900
Dennis J. Kucinich: $750
Mike Gravel: $250Commercial Banks:
Barack Obama: $607,259
Hillary Clinton: $492,725
Christopher J. Dodd: $352,500
John Edwards: $131,876
Joseph R. Biden: $102,250
Bill Richardson: $83,000
Dennis J. Kucinich: $225Real Estate:
Hillary Clinton: $2,746,039
Barack Obama: $1,337,529
Christopher J. Dodd: $582,783
John Edwards: $500,870
Bill Richardson: $418,775
Joseph R. Biden: $328,784
Dennis J. Kucinich: $6,800
Mike Gravel: $300