So what's with the debate over lobbyists? Well, I've lived in DC for a little less than two years, and I know plenty of them at this point. They aren't all bad people. But I always come back to an experience I had a few months ago when talking to a Goldman Sachs employee who funds a centrist think tank. We got into a discussion about Goldman's green strategy fund, and I asked him why there wasn't closer collaboration with environmental groups that want to move capital towards green industries. He argued that Goldman wants no influence over public policy. I asked him why Goldman hires lobbyists, and he answered, with a straight face, that they hire lobbyists to 'educate the public and decision-makers about the consequences of their public policy choices'.
That, to me, is the culture of lobbying. Individual lobbyists may be worth defending, but that is what lobbying means to the public. And with that, let's go to Hillary Clinton at Yearlykos.
I was quite surprised by Senator Clinton's presence. I've written that Clinton is a brilliant and charismatic politician who does not really share our values but is able to use rhetoric to mislead liberals about her positioning. I thought she was ahead and was going to march to the nomination quite easily, making no mistakes, taking no risks, and facing little to no criticism from her opponents. The race had become so static that it was just boring, a representation of a political system run by elites who only want to tinker around the edges (otherwise known as a 'new kind of politics').
But I think Clinton screwed up pretty badly and showed her insider elite mindset, and did it on video where it can be exploited by other candidates. Her most significant screw-up was the flub on lobbyists where she defended the profession. Keeping union-buster Mark Penn on staff as chief strategist is one thing, but overtly making the argument that lobbyists are people too, you know, and doing it on video, is brutal. Edwards has now used this argument to go after the whole Clinton legacy.
Democratic presidential contender John Edwards on Monday criticized former President Clinton, arguing that he allowed corporate insiders to shape the 1993 North American Free Trade Agreement that has cost U.S. jobs.
Edwards' complaints about the former president beloved by voters in his own party was a defiant move meant to highlight rival Hillary Clinton's relationship with special interests.
It comes two days after Clinton refused Edwards' challenge to stop taking campaign donations from lobbyists, saying many represent good causes.
Obama also went after her with a clever line about how corporations don't spend billions in lobbying fees to promote the public interest (except for Goldman Sachs, of course). In one sense, Clinton is correct; lobbyists are people too, and social workers and puppies and kittens have lobbyists. But 'lobbyist' is code name for a whole culture, and she has revealed herself as tied into it completely.
There were three other moments that I think were significant. In the break-out session, she refused to answer a question about whether she'd repeal the Telecom Act of 1996, saying that you should 'ask Al Gore' since she had nothing to do with the legislation as first lady. It was a poor response, because the question was about what she would do not what Al Gore did. This was followed by a refusal on state to answer a question about media consolidation and the Wall Street Journal.
The other moment was when she was asked whether we are safer since 9/11, and she responded by saying that we are safer in the sense that Americans before 9/11 would never have consented to taking off their shoes and getting searched at airports. This unwitting revelation about her views on the increased need for artificial 'security theater', the notion that violations of our rights makes us safer, needs further examination, debate, and exposure.
Splicing all the video together, or her flubbing the lobbyist line, refusing to answer the media consolidation question, and avoiding responsibility for media policy by telling people to ask Al Gore, would be devastating.
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