RNC notes hypocrisy on Obama pledge
Posted: Friday, June 06, 2008 2:01 PM by Mark Murray
Filed Under:
Democrats, Republicans
From NBC's Mark Murray
On Thursday, Obama announced that the Democratic National Committee -- as his campaign does -- would no longer accept financial contributions from federal lobbyists.
"We will not take a dime from Washington lobbyists or special interest PACs," he said. "We're going to change how Washington works. They will not fund my party. They will not run our White House."
But today, the Republican National Committee is noting all the holes in this pledge. In addition to the fact that Obama accepts money from employees of lobbying firms (as long as those folks aren't themselves federal lobbyists), the RNC points out that the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee take money from lobbyists. Moreover, at least one prominent DNC member -- vice chair Lottie Shackelford -- is a lobbyist.
RNC spokesman Danny Diaz called these holes "amazingly hypocritical."
But Obama spokesman Bill Burton told First Read that the RNC itself was being hypocritical here -- because the GOP and the McCain campaign accept money from federal lobbyists. "Instead of partisan attacks, we would welcome John McCain to the same strict policy" that Obama has, he said. "This attack is an attempt to distract from the fact that [the McCain] campaign is paid for and run by some of the most powerful lobbyists in Washington."
DNC spokeswoman Stacie Paxton adds, "Sen. Obama has made an unprecedented and important step to stop taking money from PACs and Washington lobbyists at the DNC -- a standard that John McCain’s own campaign and the RNC he claims to control have refused to follow. Officers of the DNC are elected and are not paid staff -- no members of the DNC staff, however, are federal lobbyists."
