Edwards completely wrong on lobbyists [View All]

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/08/06/lobbyists.democrats/index.html?iref=werecommend

Democratic presidential front-runner Sen. Hillary Clinton is being taken to task by her two closest rivals for accepting $400,000 in campaign contributions from Washington lobbyists.

Over the weekend, Clinton was booed by an audience of liberal bloggers in Chicago when she defended taking money from Washington lobbyists, something both Sen. Barack Obama and former Sen. John Edwards have vowed not to do.

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"A lot of these lobbyists, whether you like it or not, represent real Americans. They actually do. They represent nurses, they represent social workers -- yes, they represent corporations that employ a lot of people," Clinton said.

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Edwards' response was to ask, "How many people in this room have a Washington lobbyist working for you?"

"You are not represented by Washington lobbyists. We need to cut these people off," he said, to cheers.

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Edwards was flatly wrong and played to peoples' ignorance in the process. Clinton was right - most lobbyists do represent real Americans. I know - I AM one of those lobbyists. I represent millions of American students, teachers, and education administrators. I can tell you for a fact that even among our most astute members, ones that know what it is I actually do, would barely be cognizant of the fact that they do have a lobbyist working for them, mostly due to inherent ignorance of what a lobbyist actually is in the first place.

Everyone here should do themselves a favor and google the phrase "national association". There are literally thousands of these organizations, and almost every single one of them has a lobbyist. They represent nurses, unions, counties, children, educators, broadcasters, the mentally ill, ad infinitum. You don't realize this, but there is a good chance that there's a lobbyist that represents at least one interest of every single man, woman, and child in this nation. YOU are most likely being represented by a lobbyist yourself and you don't even know it. Edwards is playing on your ignorance to make a political point.

I am a fan of neither Edwards nor Clinton. Neither is likely to get my primary vote (I currently don't have a candidate, still waiting for Gore.) I put this disclaimer to ward off those who think I'm merely bashing Edwards because I don't like him or because I'm a fan of Clinton's. This is definitely not the case.