Lobbyist on, then off, Obama fundraiser invite
As he campaigns against evil Washington insiders, Sen. Barack Obama regularly points out that he shuns all money from “currently registered federal lobbyists.” Or so he says on all his fundraising invitations, including the one for his event at Avalon in Hollywood set for Thursday night.
Hey, as long as you're in the Golden State debating, why not pick up some change?
But the policy is one that has complicated Obama's life, from time to...
time, as The Times and its financial fundraising expert Dan Morain have pointed out. And evidently, once again, that policy is causing a bit of a problem.
The invitation for Obama’s fundraiser includes 50 co-hosts, each of whom has raised at least $25,000 for the Illinois senator's presidential campaign. One of the listed co-hosts is Daron Watts, attorney at the firm Sidley Austin.
According to Sidley’s website, Watts is “head of the West Coast Food and Drug Practice group. He maintains an active, multidimensional litigation, regulatory and public policy practice that focuses on FDA-regulated industries from both the West Coast and Washington, D.C.”
And Watts has registered with the U.S. Senate as a lobbyist. His clients include the food service firm Aramark, on matters related to school lunches and breakfasts. He also represents Sepracor, a drug company that manufactures such products as the heavily advertised Lunesta, on matters related to Medicare reimbursement.
Watts declined to discuss the matter.
The Obama campaign was contacted about the Watts involvement. An aide responded a few hours later by saying that Watts was being removed from the invitation and would not be raising money for the Democratic presidential candidate.
-- Andrew Malcolm
Andrew Malcolm's immigrant parents repeatedly stressed the importance of active participation in a democracy. Early lessons included learning the alphabetical list of states by watching televised roll calls of national political conventions. That childhood exposure led to a lifelong fascination with politics, including 40-plus years of covering them and a brief stint practicing them as press secretary to Laura Bush in 1999-2000. A veteran foreign and national correspondent, Malcolm served on the Times Editorial Board and was a Pulitzer finalist in 2004. He is the author of 10 nonfiction books and father of four.
Johanna Neuman is a veteran Washington correspondent for both The Los Angeles Times and USA Today, having covered presidents and politics as far back as Ronald Reagan. A former president of the White House Correspondents Assn., she authored a book on media and foreign policy, “Lights, Camera, Wars.” Most recently she was co-author of the 
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Assuming the facts are as presented...Daron Watts should have known better, He knew he was a federal lobbyist, if he supports Obama he surely knew Obama's policy on federal lobbyists, and yet he still got involved. I don't blame a bunch of volunteers for not double-checking all the names against a lobbyist list, as there can be different people with the same name. I DO blame Daron Watts for putting his candidate in an awkward position.
Posted by: Tom J | January 29, 2008 at 10:22 AM
Not to get TOO tin-foil hat-ish here...but I immediately thought that perhaps this attorney/lobbyist may have been put up to this by a rival canidate.
Posted by: Tamara | January 29, 2008 at 02:33 PM
Senatory Obama, what would you do for people who already lost there homes and mortgages; and lost there money and are on a fixed income.
michele hopkins
Posted by: michele hopkins | January 31, 2008 at 06:08 PM
obama and hilary join forces president and vice president
Posted by: lisa Caputo | January 31, 2008 at 06:13 PM
Tamara, I know Daron. He's an upstanding guy and he is certainly no agent for a rival campaign. It appears he simply did not dot his "i"s and cross his "t"s regarding adhering to Obama's rules on lobbyists. I agree with Tom J., there should be better self-policing among the volunteers.
Posted by: Pete Wilson | February 08, 2008 at 12:41 PM