VII: The Hope Pope and his Trilateral Money Machine 271Daschle, one of Obama’s leading surrogates, is notorious as the Senator from Citibank, since this
dubious financial institution was long one of the largest single employers in South Dakota.
Obama’s newest economics controller, Jason Furman, comes from Rubin’s reactionary Hamilton
Project, a nest of monetarists attempting to camouflage their intentions under a few shreds of
center-left cover. Martens asks:
So, how should we react when we learn that the top contributors to the Obama campaign are the
very Wall Street firms whose shady mortgage lenders buried the elderly and the poor and
minority under predatory loans? How should we react when we learn that on the big donor list
is Citigroup, whose former employee at CitiFinancial testified to the Federal Trade Commission
that it was standard practice to target people based on race and educational level, with the sales
force winning bonuses called “Rocopoly Money” (like a sick board game), after “blitz” nights
of soliciting loans by phone? How should we react when we learn that these very same firms,
arm in arm with their corporate lawyers and registered lobbyists, have weakened our ability to
fight back with the class-action vehicle? (Pam Martens, Obama’s Money Cartel: How he’s
fronted for the most vicious firms on Wall Street, CounterPunch, February 23, 2008)
Martens goes on to ask, in despair:
Should there be any doubt left as to who owns our government? The very same cast of
characters making the Obama hit parade of campaign loot are the clever creators of the industry
solutions to the wave of foreclosures gripping this nation’s poor and middle class, effectively
putting the solution in the hands of the robbers. The names of these programs (that have failed
to make a dent in the problem) have the same vacuous ring: Hope Now; Project Lifeline. (Pam
Martens, Obama’s Money Cartel: How he’s fronted for the most vicious firms on Wall Street,
CounterPunch, February 23, 2008)
The answer to this problem is quite simply the necessity of opposing Obama by exposing his
actual role as a servant of the financier elite.
LOBBYISTS: BUNDLERS FOR BARKY
Martens is not the only one to notice the glaring contradiction between Obama’s “no lobbyists”
pledge, and a veritable river of swag that runs from the lobbying offices on K Street into the coffers
of the Obama campaign. A major article in USA Today noted:
Barack Obama often boasts he is “the only candidate who isn’t taking a dime from Washington
lobbyists,” yet his fundraising team includes 38 members of law firms that were paid $138
million last year to lobby the federal government, records show. Those lawyers, including 10
former federal lobbyists, have pledged to raise at least $3.5 million for the Illinois senator’s
presidential race. Employees of their firms have given Obama’s campaign $2.26 million, a USA
Today analysis of campaign finance data shows. Which lawyers bundle money? Thirty-one of
the 38 are law firm partners, who typically receive a share of their firm’s lobbying fees. At least
six of them have some managerial authority over lobbyists. “It makes no difference whether the
person is a registered lobbyist or the partner of a registered lobbyist, if the person is raising
money to get access or curry favor,” said Michael Malbin, director of the Campaign Finance
Institute, a non-partisan think tank. Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor said that while Obama’s
refusal to take money from lobbyists “isn’t a perfect solution or symbol, it does reflect Obama’s
record of trying to change the way that Washington does business.” He declined to elaborate.
Lobbyists have long played key fundraising and policymaking roles for candidates, and