Lessons in smooth moves that fool the uniformed...

Lobbyists are viewed by many as worse than ambulance chasing lawyers, and one of the most ironic things about the Obama campaign was the public attention and kudos given for his repeated statements that he was not going to take lobbyist or pac money. Read the comments on this post on CNN about the DNC having to return $100,000 because of the Obama edict.

The majority of those commenting don't seem to realize that Obama worked with and received funding from lobbyists as well as continued to take funding from spouses of lobbyists. As Jim Tankersley points out:

...the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee - will continue to accept lobby and PAC money this election. That's the same position as presumptive Republican nominee John McCain and every affiliate of the Republican National Committee, who all accept lobby and PAC dollars.

As Slate points out not all lobbyists are "taboo" yet the impression is being sold that this is what Obama is doing.

Why? As stated above, Lobbyists are viewed by many as worse than ambulance chasing lawyers. Yet some of the lobbyists are striking back. It's also worth pointing out that people like Oprah and George Soros and Move On could be considered "special interest" so this is not a truly citizen based grass roots campaign where special interest money is not taken. It's a creative public relations move based on the publics dim view of lobbyists that really doesn't hurt his financial contributions since those that really want to help him that are lobbyists are still doing so. They're just doing it under the radar.

I have a really hard time seeing how American Civil Engineers could be evil lobbying monsters...The reality is that money drives politics and whether you ban all lobbyist dollars, all pac dollars or play games with who's "bad and who's good," most big donors whether they are lobbyists or not, want something in return. Even the 90 grandma who donated $20.00 bucks wants something, the major difference is if you don't give her what she wanted, you won't miss her money next time around...

Personally I think this one has the potential to create problems later, either the media or the Republican attack machine is going to make an issue of it, the information is already out there and every time an Obama promise can be tarnished? It hurts his credibility as trying to promote his being different. It will be really interesting to see what happens when his media machine goes up against some of the Republican 527's and Pacs. Will he address them or ignore them, many feel Kerry's downfall was that he was not agressive enough against the attack machine. Unlike Kerry, Obama has more financial resources...with or without the few lobbyists that are not welcome.