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The Obama admin will generally prosecute the enemies of whoever pays them the most. We live in a representative democracy, but the representation seems to be au

The Obama admin will generally prosecute the enemies of whoever pays them the most. We live in a representative democracy, but the representation seems to be auctioned off.

SkyMarshal 16y ago
Not just the Obama admin, but any that manages to get elected. You can't even hope to win a modern election without billions in funding from corporate or wealthy private interests. Even Obama's small-donor-oriented political machine raised roughly half its campaign funding from the former.
- ChuckMcM 16y ago
  Meg Whitman proved you can't buy an election in California.
  - jbooth 16y ago
    She only proved that you can't buy an election if you're outrageously blatant about it and a terrible candidate on top of that. Most congresspeople spend more time raising money (banging the phones, attending fundraisers, etc) than they do on policy. You need a few million in the bank to be a "credible candidate", and lobbyists can get you a chunk of the way there.
    - Aetius 16y ago
      Yes, she could have used a few pages out of the following book: Modern Vote Buying In The U.S., Koch , et al. 2000-
    - thaumaturgy 16y ago
      I think she would have won if Brown weren't running -- in the end, he had a proven track record doing exactly the kind of reconstruction that California needs right now, and that trumped her money.
      - jbooth 16y ago
        I'm not local and didn't have a great view of it. From what I heard, she was on the air so early and so obnoxiously often that it destroyed whatever message she may have had (and the message was lousy/stale/reactive, too). I think that loses to generic dem in California, but again I'm not local and don't really have the pulse there.
  - cabalamat 16y ago
    Er, surely Meg Whitman proved that Meg Whitman can't buy an election in California? The fact that politicians go to great efforts to raise campaign funds proves that they think its worthwhile.
  - Nate75Sanders 16y ago
    The reasoning you're looking for here is "necessary, but not sufficient". This post is dedicated to mathematics.
  - ChuckMcM 16y ago
    If you do the 'good/bad' candidate, 'buys/doesn't buy' the election grid then a system that prevents bad candidates from buying elections would seem to be sufficient. All the other results are tolerable / unavoidable.
- kijinbear 16y ago
  I wonder what would happen if some super-wealthy retired philanthropist (think Bill Gates, minus the MS monopoly tarnish) donated $1B to a promising Presidential candidate, with very few strings attached. Maybe we'll just end up with another assassinated President...
  - ceejayoz 16y ago
    > I wonder what would happen A felony conviction for campaign finance law violations. :-)
    - kijinbear 16y ago
      Haha, didn't think of that. What if the retired billionaire just ran for President himself?
  - bioh42_2 16y ago
    I don't think just $1B would be enough. I don't think we would have an assassination... but I must admit I am so cynical that one would not terribly surprise me. However, by no means would just the president be enough. You have to keep in mind both the house and the senate are just as much in the pocket of lobbyist as the white house, in fact probably more so. And the president alone can declare war, grant pardons, and not much else. Also, we have to remember that a lot of Obama's funding, especially early on, came from true grass roots, and was in small units which added up big time. So he's as close to a people's candidate as we've had in a LOOONG time. And yet, even he black, constitutional scholar, the most charismatic public speaker in ~ 40 years, even he is succumbing to our cynical political realities. If he is not a transformative president who could ever be? Oh I know he passed health care, but how is more spending radically different from the Medicare drug benefit, or any of the other ways both Republicans and Democrats have grown the size of government over the years?
    - lotusleaf1987 16y ago
      Obama spent $1.7 billion in 2008: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aerix76GvmRM http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a... I think $1B is enough to tip the scales for the right candidate, but if everyone knew one candidate was being propped up by a billionaire it would immediately backfire.
jbooth 16y ago
The Obama admin has actually been better than every other administration about disclosing lobbyist visits, etc. See my link below. Note that no congressional offices or subcommittees have followed suit (and really, if you're spending lobbyist dollars and looking for results, swaying a subcommittee chair is so much easier than swaying the president, and might accomplish more). I'd go as far as to say the problem is more "Washington in general and Congress in particular" than Obama. I mean, last week he was a socialist and now he's a plutocrat, too? The two philosophies are diametrically opposed, pick one.
- harold 16y ago
  I disagree. For example: The Obama administration has already failed to respond to more FOIA requests than the Bush administration. http://www.rcfp.org/newsitems/index.php?i=11758 http://www.rcfp.org/newsitems/index.php?i=11758 Obama Administration Aides meet with lobbyists off the White House grounds to avoid logging meetings: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0211/50081.html http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0211/50081.html More than 40 former lobbyists work in top positions in the administration, including three cabinet secretaries and the director of Central Intelligence. http://washingtonexaminer.com/politics/former-lobbyists-senior-obama-administration-positions http://washingtonexaminer.com/politics/former-lobbyists-seni...
  - jbooth 16y ago
    On your links: #1) Your first link makes absolutely no reference to the Bush administration. It supports my point, though, Obama created stricter guidelines instructing the agencies to fulfill more FOIA requests. And the agencies are falling short for whatever bureaucratic reason, seemingly that they can't work through the pile fast enough. Rome wasn't built in a day and all that. Thanks for the link though, I didn't know Obama had done that. I approve. #2) Some aides met with lobbyists off of white house ground to avoid logging the meetings? You mean to avoid the policy that Obama put in place and that had never existed before he was elected? Seems like he's working in the right direction, to me. Now we just need Congress to implement a similar rule. #3) Yeah, again, not perfect just yet. Want to compare/contrast with the number of former lobbyists who worked in the Bush white house, on the McCain campaign, or on John Boehner's staff? If you're reasoning backwards from "I've decided I don't like Obama", you can believe whatever you want. But the guy's history and all of his public pronouncements since taking office have been on the side of openness, and consistently against the influence of lobbyists. He's actually created a bunch of initiatives for more openness, the lobbyist visit thing and the data.gov thing being two of them. It's just plain disingenuous to claim that Obama is less in favor of openness than Dick Cheney. EDIT: Wow. Not usually one to whine about the voting but the guy's links actually say the opposite of what he's claiming. And he's upvoted. Just goes to show, you can believe whatever you want and vote that way too.

The Obama admin will generally prosecute the enemies of whoever pays them the most. We live in a representative democracy, but the representation seems to be auctioned off.

SkyMarshal 16y ago

Not just the Obama admin, but any that manages to get elected. You can't even hope to win a modern election without billions in funding from corporate or wealthy private interests. Even Obama's small-donor-oriented political machine raised roughly half its campaign funding from the former.

ChuckMcM 16y ago
Meg Whitman proved you can't buy an election in California.
- jbooth 16y ago
  She only proved that you can't buy an election if you're outrageously blatant about it and a terrible candidate on top of that. Most congresspeople spend more time raising money (banging the phones, attending fundraisers, etc) than they do on policy. You need a few million in the bank to be a "credible candidate", and lobbyists can get you a chunk of the way there.
  - Aetius 16y ago
    Yes, she could have used a few pages out of the following book: Modern Vote Buying In The U.S., Koch , et al. 2000-
  - thaumaturgy 16y ago
    I think she would have won if Brown weren't running -- in the end, he had a proven track record doing exactly the kind of reconstruction that California needs right now, and that trumped her money.
    - jbooth 16y ago
      I'm not local and didn't have a great view of it. From what I heard, she was on the air so early and so obnoxiously often that it destroyed whatever message she may have had (and the message was lousy/stale/reactive, too). I think that loses to generic dem in California, but again I'm not local and don't really have the pulse there.
- cabalamat 16y ago
  Er, surely Meg Whitman proved that Meg Whitman can't buy an election in California? The fact that politicians go to great efforts to raise campaign funds proves that they think its worthwhile.
- Nate75Sanders 16y ago
  The reasoning you're looking for here is "necessary, but not sufficient". This post is dedicated to mathematics.
- ChuckMcM 16y ago
  If you do the 'good/bad' candidate, 'buys/doesn't buy' the election grid then a system that prevents bad candidates from buying elections would seem to be sufficient. All the other results are tolerable / unavoidable.
kijinbear 16y ago
I wonder what would happen if some super-wealthy retired philanthropist (think Bill Gates, minus the MS monopoly tarnish) donated $1B to a promising Presidential candidate, with very few strings attached. Maybe we'll just end up with another assassinated President...
- ceejayoz 16y ago
  > I wonder what would happen A felony conviction for campaign finance law violations. :-)
  - kijinbear 16y ago
    Haha, didn't think of that. What if the retired billionaire just ran for President himself?
- bioh42_2 16y ago
  I don't think just $1B would be enough. I don't think we would have an assassination... but I must admit I am so cynical that one would not terribly surprise me. However, by no means would just the president be enough. You have to keep in mind both the house and the senate are just as much in the pocket of lobbyist as the white house, in fact probably more so. And the president alone can declare war, grant pardons, and not much else. Also, we have to remember that a lot of Obama's funding, especially early on, came from true grass roots, and was in small units which added up big time. So he's as close to a people's candidate as we've had in a LOOONG time. And yet, even he black, constitutional scholar, the most charismatic public speaker in ~ 40 years, even he is succumbing to our cynical political realities. If he is not a transformative president who could ever be? Oh I know he passed health care, but how is more spending radically different from the Medicare drug benefit, or any of the other ways both Republicans and Democrats have grown the size of government over the years?
  - lotusleaf1987 16y ago
    Obama spent $1.7 billion in 2008: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aerix76GvmRM http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a... I think $1B is enough to tip the scales for the right candidate, but if everyone knew one candidate was being propped up by a billionaire it would immediately backfire.

jbooth 16y ago

The Obama admin has actually been better than every other administration about disclosing lobbyist visits, etc. See my link below. Note that no congressional offices or subcommittees have followed suit (and really, if you're spending lobbyist dollars and looking for results, swaying a subcommittee chair is so much easier than swaying the president, and might accomplish more). I'd go as far as to say the problem is more "Washington in general and Congress in particular" than Obama. I mean, last week he was a socialist and now he's a plutocrat, too? The two philosophies are diametrically opposed, pick one.

harold 16y ago
I disagree. For example: The Obama administration has already failed to respond to more FOIA requests than the Bush administration. http://www.rcfp.org/newsitems/index.php?i=11758 http://www.rcfp.org/newsitems/index.php?i=11758 Obama Administration Aides meet with lobbyists off the White House grounds to avoid logging meetings: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0211/50081.html http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0211/50081.html More than 40 former lobbyists work in top positions in the administration, including three cabinet secretaries and the director of Central Intelligence. http://washingtonexaminer.com/politics/former-lobbyists-senior-obama-administration-positions http://washingtonexaminer.com/politics/former-lobbyists-seni...
- jbooth 16y ago
  On your links: #1) Your first link makes absolutely no reference to the Bush administration. It supports my point, though, Obama created stricter guidelines instructing the agencies to fulfill more FOIA requests. And the agencies are falling short for whatever bureaucratic reason, seemingly that they can't work through the pile fast enough. Rome wasn't built in a day and all that. Thanks for the link though, I didn't know Obama had done that. I approve. #2) Some aides met with lobbyists off of white house ground to avoid logging the meetings? You mean to avoid the policy that Obama put in place and that had never existed before he was elected? Seems like he's working in the right direction, to me. Now we just need Congress to implement a similar rule. #3) Yeah, again, not perfect just yet. Want to compare/contrast with the number of former lobbyists who worked in the Bush white house, on the McCain campaign, or on John Boehner's staff? If you're reasoning backwards from "I've decided I don't like Obama", you can believe whatever you want. But the guy's history and all of his public pronouncements since taking office have been on the side of openness, and consistently against the influence of lobbyists. He's actually created a bunch of initiatives for more openness, the lobbyist visit thing and the data.gov thing being two of them. It's just plain disingenuous to claim that Obama is less in favor of openness than Dick Cheney. EDIT: Wow. Not usually one to whine about the voting but the guy's links actually say the opposite of what he's claiming. And he's upvoted. Just goes to show, you can believe whatever you want and vote that way too.