Despite Obama protests, two groups aid his side
Sen. Barack Obama’s protests notwithstanding, two related independent campaigns are jumping into the primary fray on his behalf, buying newspaper ads, seeking to register voters and airing television ads in California and elsewhere touting his candidacy.
Funded primarily by wealthy Californians, the pro-Obama PowerPAC and Vote Hope are paying for radio and newspaper ads, calling voters, and trying to organize volunteers who will help get out the vote for Obama on Feb. 5.
So far, according to The Times' Dan Morain, the ads tout Obama and make no mention of his foes.
Obama strongly protested the involvement of such groups when....
they helped his foes, Sen. Hillary Clinton and former Sen. John Edwards. Organized labor, the women’s group, EMILY’s List, and others spent $6 million in Iowa and New Hampshire.
Now, the Edwards and Clinton campaigns are doing the protesting.
Edwards' deputy campaign manager Jonathan Prince now criticizes Obama. “He loudly and repeatedly attacked independent groups in Iowa as special interests,” Prince said. “But when a different outside group with ties to his campaign starts raising and spending money on his behalf, there's not a peep from him or his campaign.”
Actually, on Friday, Obama’s campaign released a letter dated Dec. 28 to Vote Hope founder Steve Phillips urging that he disband the group. Phillips declined. Phillips’ wife, Susan, is the daughter of Herb and Marion Sandler, who are billionaires and major California Democratic donors.
The actual amount that the pro-Obama groups are spending is difficult to track. A PowerPAC filing with the Federal Election Commission placed the amount at $245,000.
Vote Hope raised $350,000 in the first half of the year, according to records filed in July with the FEC and the California Secretary of State. More detailed filings are expected Thursday. When Vote Hope was created in March, Phillips said he hoped to raise $2 million to get Obama supporters to the polls in California.
-- Andrew Malcolm
This is not Obamas problem. He sent a letter asking them to stop. Maybe they are over zealous like Hillary Clintons husband. You can force someone to stop doing anything, you can only ask them to stop.
Posted by: Washington29 | January 26, 2008 at 10:42 AM
Go Obama!
He needs all the help he can get as he fights the two-headed hydra of the Clintons!
Posted by: Hope Aguilar | January 26, 2008 at 12:10 PM
The way things are shaping up. Methinks we will have a Republican president.
One man's opinion:
Obama will not become president of the US this time.
Obama may lose seat as US senator from Illinoois. How has he represented that state and its people? How did he become US Senator? Defeating Alan Keyes. Does not seem a very strong base. Keyes was a very, very weak opponent. (I have read the Chicago Tribune before Obama's announcement for the presidency)
People in Chicago know Obama, the same way people in NYC know Rudy.
Billary? Need I say more?
The pundits should all be fired. They are a worthless bunch.
The do-nothing Democrats in Congress will suffer also by their spineless performance. A bunch of jelly fish.
I don't like Mr. Bush; but he knows what he wants and goes for it.
Ms. Pelosi, the first woman blah, blah. - so what? what has she done?
Play along with the big boys. (Republicans)
I hope I am wrong!
Posted by: Inessa | January 26, 2008 at 12:11 PM
In addition to the opinion which recently appeared in the LA Times pointing to liberal fatigue with some of the games of the past week, it sounds like John Kerry's warning has resonated:
Posted by: Jake | January 26, 2008 at 12:43 PM
Obama's independent backers' wealth is based on their being mainstays of California's sprawling, unsustainable suburbanized economy -- housing mortgage industrialists. (The good news is that they are not Big Pharma, war industry, etc.)
RE: "Actually, on Friday, Obama’s campaign released a letter dated Dec. 28
to Vote Hope founder Steve Phillips urging that he disband the group. Phillips
declined. Phillips’ wife, Susan, is the daughter of Herb and Marion Sandler,
who are billionaires and major California Democratic donors."
Herb and Marion Sandler were dominant players in finance of market-rate housing -- first in the Bay Area, then in 10 western states. Wachovia of North Carolina bought out their Golden West Financial for $25 billion in 2006. Golden West, dba World Savings, was headquartered in Oakland. Fortune magazine ranked it the most-admired savings and loan in morgtgage services industry: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/mostadmired/snapshots/574.html.
Posted by: WatermelonGrower | January 26, 2008 at 02:11 PM