Equal time on big oil contributions
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Pamela Kincheloe
Published: June 20, 2008
Just to give the GOP equal time, as referenced in http://www.opensecrets.org, in the last report period (March 31, 2008), Exxon Mobil contributed $18,801 to Senator John McCain in the 2008 fundraising
cycle.
Notably, however, $326,009 was contributed to congressional Republicans and $115,273 to the congressional Democrats by Exxon Mobil. Finally, in the 2003-2008 cycle, 91 percent of contributions to
Senator Obama were from individuals with 8 percent from PACs. McCain received 80 percent of his contributions from individuals and 15 percent from PACs.
For the fairest understanding of the percentage of ExxonMobil contributions to the candidates, Senator McCain has raised a total of $4,386,728 and Senator Obama has raised $16,425,679 in the 2003-
2008 fundraising cycle. That means that Senator McCain received 0.05 percent and Senator Obama received 0.02 percent, respectively, of their total 2003-2008 contributions during the first quarter of
2008 from ExxonMobil. To put the numbers into perspective, Exxon Mobil profits exceeded $11.7 billion in the 2007 fourth quarter!
PAMELA KINCHELOE
Manassas
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Reader Reactions
Posted by ( jVA ) on June 20, 2008 at 10:54 am
I think what Ron is saying is that this eye-popping report from “open secrets” - whoever is that is - is hardly that eye popping. The guy who wrote the original letter in the Potomac News the other day clearly thought he was making some incredible gotcha point. He was really just revealing his shallow intelligence.
If you’ve ever contributed to a political campaign, you know that they ask you for your employer’s name and occupation. I think its actually a requirement, right?
“Businesses, labor unions, civic & religious organizations should be forbidden to contribute to political campaigns & parties. “
I agree willow703. I was actually trying to look up the rules on this the other day. Does anybody know? Can a business actually write a contribution check directly to a politician?
I’m sure they have ways around it if not. Just curious about the actual law.
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Posted by ( willow703 ) on June 20, 2008 at 8:31 am
Businesses, labor unions, civic & religious organizations should be forbidden to contribute to political campaigns & parties.
They have no right to vote. Only people have a right to vote; only people should have a right to contribute and only on a one check, with a dollar limit, to one candidate or party per election, basis.
People like George Soros should not be able to buy the Oval office, Congress & the Supreme Court.
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Posted by ( RonCharest ) on June 20, 2008 at 8:00 am
I contacted the Obama campaign staff following the previous letter concerning his receipt of Exxon/Mobile donations, and received an e-mail response the following day. I published the actual e-mail in the comment thread of the June 15 letter, so will paraphrase it here.
Their answer was that people are required to report their place of employment when contributing campaign donations. Some non-governmental organization (which presumably includes Open Secrets, a non-governmental non-partisan watchdog organization) classifies these private donations by company. However, the money is from private citizens, not the company itself or company lobbyists.
The letter went on to explain that Sen. Obama has established a policy of not accepting campaign funds from lobbyists and 527’s.
Sen. McCain, in contrast, has nearly his entire top campaign organizers and staff composed of lobbyists, and is being funded largely through lobbyists groups and 527’s. In addition, he is currently in violation of campaign finance laws he helped to write by accepting public financing during his primaries, then exceeding his spending limits established for public financing.
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