Obama Took Oil Money But Claimed Not to

by D. Cupples |   Fact check has a piece that casts still more doubt on the claims Barack Obama has made on the campaign trail about his political purity:

"In a new ad, Obama says, 'I don’t take money from oil companies.'

"Technically, that's true, since a law that has been on the books for more than a century prohibits corporations from giving money directly to any federal candidate. But that doesn’t distinguish Obama from his rivals in the race.

"We find the statement misleading:

 

• Obama has accepted more than $213,000 from individuals who work for companies in the oil and gas industry and their spouses.    
     
• Two of Obama's bundlers are top executives at oil companies and are listed on his Web site as raising between $50,000 and $100,000 for the presidential hopeful. (Fact Check)

Fact Check is right about corporations having been banned from giving political donations to candidates.  That's why groups like the Center for Responsive Politics follows the money by tracking donations from individuals that work for corporations.

If someone working in the oil and gas industry gives $1000 to a candidate, it doesn't say much.  When you can track five- and six-digit donations through industry-related bundling, it does say something.

As I blogged about yesterday, this isn't the first time that Sen. Obama seemed to use technicalities to under-estimate his ties to special interests. 

For example, Obama says he won't take money from lobbyists and PACs.  Yet, he raised more than $1 million from PACs just before his presidential bid.  Also, an Obama fund raiser expressed interest to a lobbyist in taking donations from the lobbyist's wife.

Talk about technicalities!

It's NOT that Obama is any worse than any other candidate in terms of financial ties to special interests: it's that he's no better than the others -- despite the fact that he has repeatedly claimed to be. 

If Obma did not want to live up to such a high standard, he should not have set for himself.

The Center for Responsive Politics has tables of the three presidential candidates' top-20 industry-connected donations:  Barack Obama,  Hillary Clinton,  John McCain.

Memeorandum has commentary: NO QUARTER, Political Punch, MoJoBlog, OpenSecrets.org, QandO, The American Mind, Dean's World, Commentary, TalkLeft and Reds

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* Obama Says Hillary Should Stay In: Actions are Different 

* Obama Took Credit for Others' Legislative Work, Media Ignored it

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