While the media is now paying attention to the Superdelegate commitments for Obama and Hillary the following just arrived on my desk. Not really my desk. My email in box. Did you know that both candidates have given cash contributions to these very same people who will be casting powerful votes in this very tight Democratic primary?
“Superdelegates get campaign cash
Posted by Foon Rhee, deputy national political editor February 14, 2008 03:54 PM
Many of the superdelegates who could well decide the Democratic presidential nominee have already been plied with campaign contributions by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, a new study shows.
“While it would be unseemly for the candidates to hand out thousands of dollars to primary voters, or to the delegates pledged to represent the will of those voters, elected officials serving as superdelegates have received about $890,000 from Obama and Clinton in the form of campaign contributions over the last three years,” the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics reported today.
About half the 800 superdelegates — elected officials, party leaders, and others — have committed to either Clinton or Obama, though they can change their minds until the convention.
Obama’s political action committee has doled out more than $694,000 to superdelegates since 2005, the study found, and of the 81 who had announced their support for Obama, 34 had received donations totaling $228,000.
Clinton’s political action committee has distributed about $195,000 to superdelegates, and only 13 of the 109 who had announced for her have received money, totaling about $95,000.”
Gilbert thoughts. It’s one thing for a candidate to offer a bus ride to your polling booth but this surely puts pressure on those who accepted these contributions which in themselves are probably legal.
If only it were so simple as cash. But then even cash isn’t so simple. Add to the cash mix, all the earmarks by candidates. Clinton earmarked more than $2 million for The New School. That school’s president, Bob Kerry, endorsed Clinton. That’s just one example. Oh, and wait. That’s taxpayer money, not voluntary contributions to a PAC.
How about Rep. Diane Watson’s endorsement? Bill Clinton appointed her hubby as ambassador to Jamaica. Then there are reports of Bill cajoling Bill Richardson’s reluctance to endorse with questions like, What? Aren’t two cabinet positions enough?
So you see, the deeper one digs, the more one finds.
Bill 3:28PM
I need to stop being a political purist.
If you have ton’s of money and spend it during your personal campaign people say you are trying to buy the election. Long before Mitt Romney I can remember a candidate for office in 1968 named Nelson Rockefeller.
On the other hand are candidates who cannot afford to run an effective campaign without financial aid. The key is to accept those funds with no strings attached. Sadly, many elected officials become friends with these “special interests” and do not engage in true due diligence before awarding contracts.