Obama meets Pickens on energy, not his Swift Boat financing

Texas oil and gas billionaire T. Boone Pickens broke post-partisan bread with the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama in Reno on Sunday as part of his personal quest to save America’s energy future.

We don't know if both men walked to the meeting.

Not that the 80-year-old Pickens doesn’t have some ideas, as he has been telling the country in his nonpartisan commercials airing on national television for weeks now and during his recent appearances on cable shows.

A few days ago he also met on energy with the GOP's presumptive presidential nominee, John McCain of Arizona,

But long before Pickens went post-partisan, he was, well, partisan to put it politely, Republican partisan to put it bluntly.

Way, way back -- gee, it seems like fully four months ago -- on April 22, 2008, Pickens gave $15,000 to the National Republican Congressional Committee that helps elect GOP congress members but didn't do a very good job in 2006.

Back even farther than that -- 24 hours earlier, to be precise -- Pickens gave $14,250 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee, according to The Times' Dan Morain and the records of the Federal Election Commission.

And then there was the $28,500 Pickens gave to the Republican National Committee. But that was a long, long time ago -- Oct. 15, 2007, in the days when Sen. Hillary Clinton's staff was still planting questions in her forum audiences and the New York Giants hadn't almost lost then miraculously won the Super Bowl against the New England Losers.

Pickens' wife, Madeleine Pickens, who keeps a house in....

...La Jolla, has also contributed $28,500 to the RNC.

Pickens was, in fact, among the biggest fund-raisers for Rudolph Giuliani’s failed presidential campaign, probably bundling $1 million from friends, family and business associates. Giuliani, if memory serves, is also GOP.

In this 2008 election cycle, Pickens has directly given more than $80,000 to Republicans, including $2,500 to Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, $2,300 each to the newly-indicted Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska and Sen. Pete Domenici of New Mexico, plus $2,300 to Brian Bilbray, the San Diego-area Republican congressman.

Pickens made his biggest mark in the 2004 election when he gave $2 million to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth to help finance its damaging attacks on Democratic nominee John Kerry in that year's presidential race, which created a new verb in the English language: to be swift-boated, as in sunk to the bottom of the sea by assaults on your reputation and character.

That may have made for a somewhat uncomfortable moment for Obama on Sunday, although he was pretty smiley at the event. Before meeting with Pickens in a conference room at the Grand Sierra Resort in Reno, the two shook post-partisan hands and posed for a few post-partisan pictures.

Then a reporter asked a partisan question: “Senator, how does it feel to be meeting with somebody who tore down your Democratic Party colleague in the last election?”

Obama’s dodgeball answer:

“Ah, you know, he's got a lot longer track record than that. He's been doing, ah, he's a legendary entrepreneur and you know one of the things that I think we have to unify the country around is having an intelligent energy policy.

"Everybody knows that if we keep on going on the same track that we're going, that we are giving our wealth away, we're funding both sides in the war on terror. We're going to be -- over the long term -- putting enormous pressure on ordinary families here in America who just aren't going to be able to afford skyrocketing gasoline prices and home heating prices.

"So this is one of those issues that I think should unify the country. That's what we're going to be talking about."

So bygones are bygones in 2008. At least as far as Obama is concerned. Kerry wasn't at Sunday's meeting.

-- Andrew Malcolm

Photo credit: Alex Brandon / Associated Press


Comments

[kerri]

its his money who cares who he gives it to? people need to mind their own business.

[sf]

Good for Obama! Every time he crosses the line for the benefit of the people he wins more moderate votes. Pickens, preaching the same stuff "treehuggers" have been preaching for *decades*, is a strange bedfellow for alternative energy...but whatever gets it in the mainstream is fine with me!

[Mike]

I'm sorry, but is there something wrong with Obama meeting with T. Boone Pickens? Pickens has years of experience with the energy industry, and more contacts in that industry than Britney spears has bad childhood memories.

Yes, Obama should meet with him and figure out how they can move us away from foreign oil, which is what pickens wants to do now.

John mccain wants to drill for more oil. Great idea, John. Isn't that what every republican president has suggested will get us off of oil for the past 30 years? That is not original or forward thinking policy, that is just more of the same washington nonsense that brought us here in the first place.

Obama 2008!

[acarponzo]

And the spider said to the fly....I do not care where I get my money. T.Boone, very slick. It doesn't really matter who wins, you will get your money anyway. However, the numbers are piling up at the realtime poll over at http://www.bop-o-rama.com. Here is a thought on all this. "Bipartisan usually means that a larger-than-usual deception is being carried out." Goerge Carlin

[madisonhack]

Remember the fable of the fox and whatever the hell it was, a rabbit or a squirrel or something. Halfway across the stream, the fox broke his promise to his new pal who, at the time, was riding safely out of the water on the fox's head. As the fox prepared for his lunch, the little critter protested, "but you said I would be fine...". To that, the fox replied, "But you ALWAYS knew that I was a fox". Be careful Mr. Rabbit, er Mr. Obama.

[must see]

PLEASE WATCH AND SHARE WITH EVERYONE ASAP

"The Last 100 Days"
Hon. James David Manning, PhD.

www.atlah.org/broadcast/ndnr07-28-08.html

www.dontvoteobama.net

[Stewart Nusbaumer]

As a Vietnam combat veteran, I consider Pickens and the others involved in the Swift Boat episode people without morality. They are anti-America bottom feeders! Obama should have never met with him. Never!

[theo]

i know we're use to simpleton leaders who are partisan and play to the base to mislead america for the past 8 years now but do refrain from calling obama stupid.

he's fully aware of pickens and his ilk. he also knows that a true leader is one who leads all americans. everyone one of us has something positive to bring to the table.

nobody's world is black and white. this sure isn't either. pickens is a prick in my book but at the end of the day, obama is setting bi-partisan examples that we just aren't use to anymore but desperately need in this country.

especially now with 1 trillion debt hole, 5.6% and rising inflation, and enormous looming economic recession heading our way that has made us a 2nd world power in 7 short years.

enough already. obama08

[Tyler]

He donates money to political causes he believes in. There's nothing wrong with that. Obama has gotten some rather large donations (raising more money then McCain on average), and I doubt we'd be hearing about it if he donated to Democratic interests. So kudos for Obama for meeting with him and kudos for Pickens for trying to get some form a economic change rolling. I would much rather have Pickens make the large chunk of money on natural gas then the Saudis because he is first and foremost an American. I want to see the powerful people in the world be supporters of basic human rights rather then oppressive regimes in the middle east. So to sum it up, I hope this works out and he makes alot of money. Because I doubt he funds terrorism and makes his woman wear a headscarf.