NEW YORK (AP) — In his first order of business as his party's presumed presidential nominee, Barack Obama is instructing the Democratic National Committee to adopt his policy against accepting donations from federal lobbyists or political action committees.
[From The Associated Press: DNC will no longer take lobbyist, PAC money]
Fine. But according to OpenSecrets.org, a web organization that tracks campaign spending, PAC money typically accounts for 1% of Presidential campaign funding. And federal lobbyists, evil though they may be, are still individual donors, just like streetcar conductors and hot dog vendors. And subject to the same limitations.
Meanwhile Obama has spent so far in this election cycle $218 million - according again to OpenSecrets.org - to Clinton's $185 million and McCain's $73 million.
McCain, meanwhile, is the only candidate of the three who is using public funding. Granted, by all reports he's cheating like crazy. But still, he is. And I'm for public funding. Candidates who turn down public funding generally do so because it limits how much they can spend and imposes reporting requirements.
So I'm not particularly impressed by Obama's (and the Democrats') little stab at virtue here.
If Obama really wants to do something useful he can start by dropping by Hullabaloo and reading dday's post on the subject:
I congratulate Barack Obama on his primary win and think he has the opportunity to bring forward meaningful change in America. In fact, he can start today. He can go to the well of the Senate and demand that the party he now leads not authorize new powers to spy on Americans and immunize corporations who broke the law with their illegal spying in the first place.
[From Hullabaloo]
Whaddya wanna bet?
