The Obama fundraising myth

Barack Obama is a great candidate. I mostly agree with him most of the time. He's smart and likeable, and I look forward to voting for him if he's our party's nominee. The thing that bugs me about Obama is that he's running as a different kind of candidate. His only tangible claim to being a different kind of candidate is that he doesn't take PAC or lobbyist monies.

"I am in this race to tell the corporate lobbyists that their days of setting the agenda in Washington are over. They have not funded my campaign, they will not get a job in my White House, and they will not drown out the voices of the American people when I am president."

He often uses this line to distinguish himself from Hillary Clinton, implying that she is beholden to lobbyists and the industries they represent. So how much PAC money is Hillary taking? According to opensecrets, she's accepted $544,492 from PACs (including organized labor,) amounting to about 0.47% of her total donations.

And how much has she taken from lobbyists? Also from opensecrets, Hillary has raised $823,087, or about 0.71%. I don't think that makes her especially beholden to them. By contrast, Obama raised 8 or 9% of his campaign contributions from PACs and lobbyists when he ran for the Senate two years ago. While in office he introduced legislation totaling $12 million in tax cuts (in the form of tariff suspensions) at the behest of corporate lobbyists.

Even his claim that he doesn't take money from federal lobbyists is misleading. He still takes money from employees of companies that earn money from lobbying, lobbyists registered at the state level, and spouses of lobbyists:

"Ben Barnes, a federally registered lobbyist, has given contributions to Hillary Clinton, Bill Richardson, Joe Biden and Chris Dodd, but not to Obama or John Edwards.

However, Barnes' wife, Melanie Barnes, has given to Obama and Edwards on the same dates and in the same amounts as her husband's contributions to the other candidates. She lists her occupation as homemaker."

All the candidates, including Obama and Clinton, get most of their money from individual contributors. This does not mean that the money comes with no strings attached. Donations above $200 are categorized by the occupation of the donor. So when candidate X says that candidate Y took $43,000 from tobacco companies, it really means candidate Y took $43,000 from employees of tobacco companies in amounts of $200 or greater.

Using this measure, let's take a look at amounts donated to Clinton and Obama from a few industries:

Industry	Clinton	Obama
All	$115,652,361	$102,170,668
Commercial Banks	$1,119,982	$1,017,200
Computers/Internet	$1,283,076	$1,327,738
Health Services/HMOs	$326,456	$216,640
Hedge Funds & Private Equity	$1,266,342	$1,040,185
Insurance	$666,121	$478,494
Lawyers/Law Firms	$11,756,493	$9,521,441
Oil & Gas	$268,562	$132,115
Pharmaceuticals/Health Products	$349,270	$337,525
Real Estate	$4,800,060	$2,748,535
Securities & Investment	$5,828,999	$5,295,884

In the South Carolina debate, Edwards called out both Clinton and Obama for taking corporate money:

"Barack just spoke, as he does often, eloquently, about taking on the drug companies, the insurance companies, I also think it's important to recognize that Senator Obama has taken more money from the drug companies than anybody. Senator Clinton has taken more money from the insurance companies than anybody."

To which Obama responded,

"A couple of points. John, I think, is aware I don't take PAC money. I don't take money from federal lobbyists. I'm not taking money from their companies.

It is true that there are employees of all sorts of companies that have given to my campaign because, frankly, I've raised a lot of money, and sometimes in $25, $50, $100 donations.

But that does mean that I've gotten a bunch of money from drug lobbyists. And I think it's important to make that distinction, John."

So, point by point:

1. Obama is taking money from those companies in exactly the same way Clinton is, just less of it.
2. Donations under $200 are not classified by industry, so his second point is patently false.
3. Clinton is taking only a fraction of a percent of her contributions from lobbyists of any industry, so I'm not sure why this is such an important distinction.
   

As I said before, I'm not anti-Obama by any stretch. I'm just sick of hearing this line about how he's running a different kind of campaign, and that he can reform the system because he isn't part of it. It's all marketing--I wish people would see it for what it is.