Another hole in Obama's alleged war on lobbyists

In my column today, I poke more holes in the Obama-vs-Lobbyists myth:

On July 23, 2008, according to papers filed with the Federal Election Commission, Democratic veteran Stuart Eizenstat gave the maximum legal contribution, $2,300, to Obama's campaign. The campaign reported Eizenstat's occupation as "Retired" and under "employer" was written "not employed."

But Eizenstat wasn't retired or unemployed on July 23, 2008. He was a federally registered lobbyist working for the K Street firm Covington & Burling.

In the week before the donation, Eizenstat had filed lobbying reports for seven different clients, and was listed as a lobbyist for three additional clients in Covington & Burling second-quarter filings. Eizenstat was also registered as a lobbyist on these accounts for the third quarter of 2008.

In a donation to Rep. Gary Ackerman, D-N.Y., one week before the gift to Obama, Eizenstat was listed in FEC filings as a partner at Covington & Burling. He was also listed as a Covington & Burling partner in his first contribution after the Obama gift, a $1,000 check to Rep. Charlie Rangel's, D-N.Y., campaign.

With reform dead, health care debate becomes pure politics

What are Obama's latest health-care proposals about? My column delves into that question:

Question: When should you start suspecting President Obama isn't serious about a health care proposal?

Answer: When he doesn't have the pharmaceutical industry on his side.

Dan Coats, lobbyist for fat cats, plots Senate return

My latest column at the Washington Examiner explores the lobbying record of Republican Senate candidate Dan Coats:

Democrats have been quick to attack Coats as a lobbyist who has done the bidding of the fattest fat cats. But, ironically, the policies Coats advanced on behalf of his corporate clients are the same bailouts, regulations, and overspending that President Obama has championed in the name of "change." And Coats' biggest clients -- Google and the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America -- have been intimate Obama allies.

The audacity of Barack Obama's populist posturing

It's becoming the Democrats' theme for the 2010 elections: populism. My column today pokes some holes in that balloon:

But the image of Obama as a reformer is at odds with his behavior as president. He signed a massive spending bill that benefited the biggest companies, ratcheted up Wall Street bailouts, signed a tobacco regulation bill written in part by the largest tobacco company, handed ownership of Chrysler to a union that had spent $4.9 million to help elect him president, rallied behind a porked-up climate bill that gave away tens of billions of dollars to the largest energy companies, and cut a backroom deal with the top drug industry lobbyists to get them on board with a health care plan derided by his own party's former leader as "a bailout for the insurance industry."

Beware the Goldman Sachs populist

My column today takes a first stab at Obama's purported war on Wall Street:

All along, we know Wall Street lobbyists will be at the table. The Wall Street "fat cats," as Obama calls them, probably aren't really looking for a fight as much as a seat at the table -- and the numbers suggest they've earned that seat.

For his presidential campaign in which Wall Street regulation was a mantra, Obama's top source of funds was investment bank giant Goldman Sachs, whose employees, partners, and executives gave him $995,000 -- that's the most any politician has raised from any one company in a single election since the age of "soft money" ended.

How the court's campaign finance ruling hurts Wall Street favorite Chuck Schumer

[Originally posted at Beltway Confidential]

Politico provided my favorite reaction to the Supreme Court's ruling today that Congress shall, in fact, make no law abridging the freedom of speech, even when it's called "reform":

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) "This activist and far reaching decision is even worse than we had feared. This opens the floodgates and allows special interest money to overflow our elections and undermine our democracy. The bottom line is, the Supreme Court has just predetermined the winners of next November’s election. It won’t be the Republican or the Democrats and it won't be the American people; it will be Corporate America."

This is entertaining -- and enlightening -- in the context of some numbers from OpenSecrets.org. Check this screen capture of the most active industries in the 2010 elections:

So, of the five most politically active industries (not counting "retired"), Schumer is the top recipient of campaign cash from three of those. You might say he's awash in "special interest money," and sniff some hypocrisy or political posturing here.

But Schumer does have a legitimate gripe. Until now, if corporations wanted to influence politics and policy, their ability to speak directly to politicians was limited by law. That meant they needed to make their case through indirect means, such as contributing to politicians -- mostly to Schumer, it seems. Or it meant paying big bucks to hire lobbyists from among the staffs of powerful lawmakers, such as:

> Carmencita Whonder, Schumer's former banking aide, now representing Fannie Mae, Merrill Lynch, the Private Equity council, Western Union
> Izzy Klein, Schumer's former press secretary now representing Bank of America, General Dynamics, Oracle, Tyco, National Association of Broadcasters
> Ipyana Critton, Schumer's former director of appropriations, now representing Deutsche Bank and Abyssian Development Corporation
> Or any of the other 9 former Schumer staffers now serving as registered lobbyists.

Now, set free of from Congress's speech regulations, non-profits and corporations might not rely so much on these indirect means of political influence. That means less campaign cash coming into Schumer, fewer corporations courting Schumer's staff, and less sucking up to Schumer by lobbyists.

What's at stake in Masschusetts? My column explains:

If Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, Democrat, hangs on to win the special election next week for Ted Kennedy's old Senate seat, she will have to thank the cadre of elite K Street lobbyists who hosted a high-powered, high-dollar fundraiser for her Tuesday night on Capitol Hill.

And if Coakley, as promised, delivers vote No. 60 for President Obama's package of health care regulations, taxes, subsidies, and mandates, these hired guns -- who have spent this year doing the bidding of drug makers, hospitals, and insurers -- will be fitting saviors of a health care "reform" that will enrich the special interests at the expense of consumers, taxpayers, and small businesses.

How Steve Shannon's friends profit from your tax dollars

I wade into Virginia politics in my column today, looking at the Democrat in the attorney general race, and why Northern Virginia developers are backing him:

And the Fairfax Chamber of Commerce is openly at war with Virginia taxpayers. The organization's agenda includes opposing a homestead deduction to property taxes (a deduction that would make it easier for families to afford life in the costly county) and opposing legislative efforts to prevent developers from offloading costs to taxpayers.

The chamber has endorsed Shannon, who regularly describes himself as "pro-business." There's more than one way to be "pro-business," though: You could favor lower taxes and less regulation as Cuccinelli does, thus creating an open and level playing field for all businesses -- even those that don't yet exist. Or you can support a system of taxes and subsidies as Shannon does, thus rewarding existing businesses, especially those who are politically well-connected.

When asked in a recent debate for details about what the AG job entailed, Shannon filibustered and evaded so badly that Cuccinelli jokingly made a court room-style objection that the witness was not answering the question -- more evidence Shannon is really running this year for the 2013 gubernatorial nomination. Well, the Post and the Northern Virginia developers are pleased that Shannon is a pro-tax increase "Aspiring Governor."

ACORN and wealthy developers vs. hipsters and firemen

I went to Brooklyn for today's column.

Wealthy and well-connected developer Bruce Ratner wants to bulldoze an old neighborhood in Brooklyn and turn it into high-rise apartment buildings and a basketball arena for the New Jersey Nets. Many locals, including the hipsters who live in Park Slope and the firemen who work at FDNY Squad No. 1, don't want this steel hulk named Atlantic Yards casting a shadow over their neighborhood and filling their streets with traffic....
To understand what's happening on Atlantic Avenue, you need to shed Left-vs.-Right and white-vs.-black modes of thinking, as well as simple anti-corporatism. Without eminent domain, Ratner would never be able to get all the land.
The real dividing line is people with access to government power -- Ratner, ACORN and the politicians -- against people without such access. You can guess who's going to win.

Obama's pattern of intolerance towards dissent

Things are getting ugly in the health-care reform debate. My column looks into how Obama is handling this:

Dissent, it turns out, is no longer patriotic. President Obama's White House and his Democratic National Committee (DNC) have unleashed an all-out assault on what they call "angry," "manufactured," and "lobbyist-funded" lies about health care reform. Look closely and you realize that's how they classify all dissent.

Obama, when speaking at Notre Dame this spring amid protests from pro-lifers, said, "When we open up our hearts and our minds to those who may not think precisely like we do or believe precisely what we believe -- that's when we discover at least the possibility of common ground."

But his record of dealing with actual dissent paints a different picture, one that suggests he has so much faith in his own good intentions and clever plans - and so little skepticism about the power of government to do good - that he sees all disagreement with his policies as condemnable.

When conservatives go gaga over Big Business

Last week, we saw an unpleasant flap regarding the American Conservative Union and a lobbying effort by FedEx. My column today rebuts some of the Politico's claims but shows how the story points to a deeper problem in the conservative movement and the GOP.

On health care, why are Republicans and conservatives most vehemently battling the government insurance plan and efforts at cost savings, rather than the bills’ tax increases, mandates on private citizens, and subsidies? Why did a recent conservative coalition letter opposing the bills omit opposition to taxpayer funding of abortion?

I suspect donor priorities become activists’ priorities. Of course conservative groups and politicians need to raise money, and Big Business has the big money. But there’s a problem: Big Business’ agenda often entails handouts and regulations that crowd out competitors — witness health care reform, cap and trade, the stimulus, and bailouts.

Is it coincidental that Republicans’ recent major transgressions against the free market — the Wall Street bailout and the Medicare prescription drug benefit — aided Big Business?

Conservative obeisance to business distracts the movement and sacrifices its principles. Even if this dynamic wasn’t behind the ACU-FedEx flap, conservatives should use the episode as inspiration to tell Big Business, “We’re with you as long as you’re for freedom, and we won’t let you set our priorities.”

Read the whole thing here.

Obama’s auto policy: All in the Democratic family

Years from now, I would not be surprised if "Chrysler" is used as shorthand for the corruption that saddled the Obama presidency. My Examiner column today takes an opening salvo at the arrangement.

President Barack Obama’s auto industry policy promises to heighten the influence of lobbyists and to open the door to ethical transgressions and even outright corruption. By naming as car czar a financier who is also a Democratic fundraiser steeped in cozy business-government relationships, and by replacing the traditional bankruptcy procedures with the will of politicians, Obama has injected Detroit with all the elements of crony capitalism.

You can read the whole column here.

Thank Bush, Santorum for Specter party switch

My Examiner column this week discusses Arlen Specter's homecoming to the Democratic Party:

When the fox that has been living in your henhouse makes off with some hens, you don’t curse the fox. You ask who let the fox in. Republicans today should be angry not at Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., but at former President George W. Bush and former Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa.

Santorum, the pro-life Catholic leader in Washington at the time, spared no effort in 2004 saving Specter from a primary challenge by then-Rep. Pat Toomey. President Bush, similarly, went above and beyond the call of duty protecting Specter.

Had either Santorum or Bush simply endorsed Specter and let him fend for himself, Toomey would have won the 2004 primary and been a slight favorite in that year’s general election.

But Santorum and Bush played their Rovian game of clever pragmatic politics and saved Specter. Had they not, we probably would have a Republican senator from Pennsylvania right now with Toomey.

You can read the whole thing here.

Did DeMint endorsement of Toomey drive Specter off the cliff?

[originally posted at Beltway Confidential]
Last Thursday night on the Senate floor, Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., told Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, then still a Republican, that DeMint would be supporting Specter’s rival, former Rep. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., in next year’s Senate Republican primary. DeMint says Specter “pretty much cut me off and said, ‘I’ve heard enough.’”

DeMint wouldn’t speculate whether this conversation spurred Specter to switch parties, but the conversation came within hours of the release of a poll showing Toomey leading Specter among primary voters 51 percent to 30 percent. “We knew Pat was going to win the primary,” DeMint said in a Capitol Hill interview Tuesday, minutes after Specter announced his move. “This [party switch] shouldn’t surprise anyone. It was a clever political move.”

DeMint had not yet gone public with his support for Toomey by the time Specter switched.
DeMint said Specter's switch “shows that there were not principles attaching Arlen to the Republican Party, but the Republican Party was the means to get elected.”

DeMint continued: “I would rather have 30 Republicans in the Senate who really believe in principles of limited government, free markets, free people, than to have 60 that don’t have a set of beliefs."

Toomey had speculated in an interview with National Review's David Freddoso that Specter might leave the party before the primary, because Pennsylvania has a “sore loser law” that prevents primary losers from running for the same office on a different party line.

Specter versus Toomey is Wall Street versus Main Street

Sen. Arlen Specter is the top GOP recipient of Wall Street cash. Former Rep. Pat Toomey has twice started up his own business. The GOP primary battle between them could shape the future of the party. My column this week explains:

Next year’s Senate Republican primary in Pennsylvania—Sen. Arlen Specter versus former Rep. Pat Toomey—could be a battle for the soul of the GOP. But it’s not a liberal-versus-conservative battle as much as a Goldman Sachs-versus-Mom n Pop fight.

Campaign finance records show that Specter is Wall Street’s favorite Republican, and voting records show why. While Specter attacks Toomey as a banker, and tries to paint his donors as Wall Street fat cats, Toomey is actually a small businessman—having run a community bank that didn’t take bailout cash, and before that starting a neighborhood bar in Allentown, Pa.

Read the whole thing here.

New Chamber Index Shows Conservatives Aren't Corporate Pawns

My latest Examiner column looks at the latest voting scorecard from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and weeds out some interesting trends.

Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., had the most conservative voting record in 2008 according to the American Conservative Union (ACU), and was a “taxpayer hero” according to the National Taxpayer’s Union (NTU), but the U.S. Chamber of Commerce says his 2008 record was less pro-business than Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Hillary Clinton.

Similarly, Texas libertarian GOPer Rep. Ron Paul—the most steadfast congressional opponent of regulation, taxation, and any sort of government intervention in business—scored lower than 90% of Democrats last year on the Chamber’s scorecard.

Read the whole thing here.

Obama Cracks Up

My second piece in the New York Post is up, recounting Obama's worst week to date:

The AIG bonuses, alienating our allies, that Special Olympics crack on "The Tonight Show there's certainly plenty of competition, but this was probably the worst week of President Obama's nascent administration.

The problem wasn't just bad decisions followed by rash reactions and changing stories. The mistakes, oversights, cover-ups, and bad press of this past week all hit Obama in the most sensitive spots, undercutting the pillars on which he had built his rare transpartisan appeal.

Read it here.

AIG mess clips the wings of high-flying Obama team

As part of our package on Obama's fall from grace, here's my piece on how the AIG mess has clipped the wings of our better angels.

The bonuses provide an early glimpse of an administration that is not offering the kind of change people were waiting for. The technocratic competence symbolized by the Ivy League degrees has proved a farce in practice. The honest and transparent government represented by ambitious-sounding executive orders has proved to be more smoke than substance.

Worst of all, this episode has dashed hopes that Obama would, in his words, “govern for all the people, not just the interests of the wealthy and well-connected.”

Read the whole thing here.

Dr. No in the Age of ‘Yes We Can’

The cover story of the Sunday Examiner is my profile on Sen. Tom Coburn.

“I’m probably the least partisan person up here.” These are surprising words to hear from Sen. Tom Coburn, the freshman Republican senator from Oklahoma, who doesn’t exactly have a reputation as a moderate: In 2008, he earned a 100 percent rating from the American Conservative Union and a big zero from the liberal Americans for Democratic Action.

Read the whole thing here.

Evans-Novak Political Report: Final Issue

I sadly present the final Evans-Novak Political Report.

Politics has a tendency to cast down the mighty and lift up the lowly. Politics makes a fool of any commentator or participant who, explaining the significance of a recent political development, uses the words "never" or "from now on."

Everything about politics--the heroes, the goats, the dynamics, the rules of thumb, the alliances, the enmities--comes and goes. With sadness, so does the Evans-Novak Political Report.