February 23, 2008 05:11 pm
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Barack Obama is beating Hillary Clinton where it may count the most.
Not in Wisconsin and other states where he is collecting delegates to the Democratic National Convention.
He is beating her more than three-to-one in the link between his campaign contributions to other politicians who are superdelegates, those who are not bound by primary or caucus preference and will pick the candidate according to their own conscience or agenda.
According to the Center for Responsive Politics and its Web site, opensecrets.org, federal candidates who are superdelegates received $698,200 from Obama, his political action committee (Hope Fund) or his campaign committee since 2005.
Hillary Clinton, her PAC (HILLPAC) or her campaign committee have given $205,500 to superdelegates who will be deciding her fate.
U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., endorsed Obama in January calling him “an extraordinary man at an extraordinary time in history.
“He is truly gifted by God with an ability to speak to people in way that touches them,” she said.
Obama’s Hope Fund gave McCaskill $10,000 for her campaign in 2006. That same year he also gave $2,500 to Nancy Boyda, who knocked off Jim Ryun to represent Southeast Kansas in Congress.
Missouri was nearly evenly split on Super Tuesday, with Obama finally winning with 49 percent of the vote to Clinton’s 48 percent. So McCaskill’s endorsement can be said to reflect the will of the state’s voters.
Adrianne Marsh, spokesperson for McCaskill, said there is “no correlation” between the donation and the endorsement and noted that McCaskill often votes against her donors’ interests.
She said Obama’s PAC was giving money to all Democratic candidates that year and McCaskill was in a hard-fought race. More to the point, she said Hillary Clinton raised money in New York City for McCaskill and Bill Clinton held a million-dollar fund-raiser in Missouri for McCaskill.
For her part, Clinton gave U.S. Rep. Brad Carson, D-Okla., $5,000 in 2004; U.S. Rep. Russ Carnahan, D-Mo., $2,500 in 2004; and U.S. Rep. Dennis Moore, D-Kan., $10,000 in 2002.
All five politicians also are superdelegates.
The newsletter Capital Eye (available via opensecrets.org) offered some perspective on the money trail and the whole question of superdelegates: “Though it might seem undemocratic to allow elected officials who have received money from the candidates to have such power in picking their party’s nominee, the process was not meant to be democratic, Arizona State’s (Richard) Herrera said, ‘If anything, it was meant to take it out of the democratic process. In 1982 (party officials) said they needed to have some professionals making decisions here to blunt the potential effects of what they perceived as amateur delegates making decisions — those who vote with their heart and not their head.’”
Address correspondence to Andy Ostmeyer, c/o The Joplin Globe, P.O. Box 7, Joplin, Mo. 64802 or e-mail aostmeyer@joplinglobe.com.
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