Before I migrated to TL I would point out to Kossacks that Gore took money from the pharmaceutical lobby, did that mean Gore would be compromised on that issue?

Heads exploded, I was accused of making just the most vicious attack one could imagine on Gore.

Outside of CDS, I have no idea how much it does matter.  Probably none.

Anyway, I think the lobbyist argument made by Ralph Nader was just effective enough in 1999 to deny victory to someone who would have made a very great president.

I once wrote a diary on DailyKos on it.

Our system has been broken ever since.
I used to think progressives were the "good guys".
It's a jarring disillusionment to discover that many who are calling themselves liberal aren't liberal(as in tolerant and open minded).

Our free press is bought and paid for. It doesn't even matter by whom.  Can't listen to Air America any more... find O'Reilly and Hannity less offensive.
MSM, AP, Reuters, CNN etc... full of opinion. Every writer is a pundit now (and not very good ones either)

But most of all, finding that after two stolen elections, that the "system" is not only still broken, it has gotten worse! It is not working folks. Only this time, it's the primary, and this time it's the DNC.

For God's sake, the GOP might not even need to rig the election to win this time! The DNC did it for them!

He does appear to be "for sale" to special interests.

In an early scene Warren Christopher cites an op-ed in the NYT.  The pundit claimed that the American people would only tolerate an impasse for 7 days. No doubt the pundit divined this info from something he pulled out of his @ss.  But Christopher took it seriously.  The scene immediately before showed James Baker telling his group that they might get hit in the op-eds but to ignore them.  Baker said he didn't want to see a copy of the NYT unless it was used to wrap trash.

Another scene had Christopher refusing to hear of going to court and asking that demonstrations be ended.  Baker went to federal court and then ordered demonstrations.

In still another scene Christopher meets with Baker and stammers through some babble about the world watching and working it all out like gentlemen.  Baker told him no compromise, tough sh!t, etc.

In still another scene Klain orders one of his staff to get to Washington and jump on Democrats in Congress who wanted to pressure Gore to concede long before all legal options were exhausted.  No doubt fearing the press which was clamoring for Gore's concession to circumvent a Constitutional crisis that never existed.

http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=25F4D552-3048-5C12-00D5DA09AF327BF1

I do have to say that, like Fox News, this seems very fair and balanced.  Even though HRC, as the only major candidate on the ballot, got 55% of the vote, she now should get 78% of the delegates, for the reasons expressed.

The point of the story is not that everyone takes money from the lobbies. The silver lining that was indeed worth writing about was the rampant hipocresy of Obama who not only used this against HRC but as
an expample of not being the usual pol; of "he being a different kind of politician" "new hope" whatever.

It is big b/c that meme was Barack Obama's candidacy raison d'etre.

I completely agree with BTD. "No money from lobbyist" claims by candidates are a game. Lobbyists don't even make the list of issues I care about

except, if that's the case, and presumably the candidates themselves realize it's a farce, why raise the issue at all, leaving yourself wide open for a legitimate charge of hypocrisy?

clearly, none of them are fooling anyone, themselves included. this leaves really only two viable reasons for saying it:

a. they just aren't very bright.
b. they've become so cynical and jaded, they assume the mass of the electorate is stupid, and won't see through the charade.

note: i include sen. mccain in this as well.

if we then assume all the candidates are reasonably bright people (and i think they all are), the only reasonable conclusion is that b holds, and they think very little of those who's votes they aspire to receive.

The People start out united, full of good ideas, and they send these good ideas to Washington DC, which is where ideas go to die -- killed at the hands of lobbyists, who exert malign influence over elected officials via personal contributions to their campaigns (someting under 1% of total campaign budgets, and something like 0.01% of total lobbying budgets).

Obama's central claim is that he will transform politics (and even more occultly, foreign relations) by tweaking the contribution filters.