Obama hangs out fly-paper for lobbyists

My Washington Examiner column for October 10 discusses Obama's coziness with Wall Street:

On Tuesday night, in the second debate, Obama answered a question on the economy by stating, “we’re going to have to change the culture in Washington so that lobbyists and special interests aren’t driving the process and your voices aren’t being drowned out.” He’s absolutely correct. Wall Street and banks have outsize influence in Washington, driving policies (pushed by both parties) that helped lead to our current mess.

But Obama is pretty cozy with those industries: According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Obama has received more than John McCain in donations from commercial banks ($2.4 million to $2.1 million), hedge funds and private equity ($2.2 million to $1.5 million), and securities and investment ($10.9 million to $7.6 million). Obama’s lead over McCain in this last category (which is basically Wall Street) is more than twice all the money ($914,000) McCain has taken from lobbyists.

The top two Wall Street donors this cycle, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, have both favored Obama—Goldman by a three-to-one ratio. Of course, Obama is the second-leading recipient of Fannie Mae money in history.

Read the whole thing here.