Calling Out Obey
Dave Obey portrays himself as a champion of good government. In January of this year, he gained national attention and accolades for supposedly wanting to get private money out of politics and he's introduced a bill to do just that (see news release here). His legislation would have taxpayer paid for elections that cap spending - to give challengers a real chance he said.
We at the time called it what is was, a load of manure (post here). Congressman Obey has taken 2/3rds of his campaign contributions over the past few years from special interests PACs and their lobbyists and lawyers in DC. We, and one of the three candidates seeking to challenge Obey, called him on the carpet and asked him to limit his own campaign spending in 2006 to fall in line with his own legislation.
Obey has refused to respond.
The reason he's refused to respond is quite simple - Congressman Obey doesn't mean a single word of what he's saying. It's simply a partisan political stunt. Want further proof?
A few years ago, when Republicans were outraising Democrats in so-called soft money to political parties, Obey conducted a great deal of wailing and gnashing of teeth. "We MUST get this unregulated soft money under control or it will kill and destroy the very fabric of America."
Obey voted for campaign finance reform and soft money was eliminated from political parties.
At the same time, Obey and his Democrat cronies in Washington were filing a RICO lawsuit against Tom DeLay and the 527 independent political organization. They cried "corruption." They said, "you can't start a 527, it's an unregulated political organization. It's not fair, blah, blah, blah, blah."
Then MoveOn.org and other liberal 527s popped up and started spending hundreds of millions of unregulated dollars to help Democrats get elected.
That's ok, Dave Obey is against unregulated private money in politics, right. Surely he will fight with the same vigor to stop 527s and their evil private money which is destroying America, right?
WRONG!!
Yesterday Dave Obey voted against legislation to apply the same campaign finance reform laws he voted for a few years ago to 527s. This bi-partisan legislation was introduced by the same authors of campaign finance reform (Shays-Meehan). Yet, Dave Obey voted against it. http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2006/roll088.xml
That's right, Dave Obey cares only about scoring partisan political points rather than voting for positions he says he holds. If the money is flowing the Democrats' way, he seems willing to throw his so-called principles to the wind.
When will the press starting holding him accountable for this? When will a reporter in Wisconsin have the courage to all Dave Obey on the carpet for his complete inconsistency on campaign finance? Is there an honest mainstream reporter out there anywhere?
This just in, Nick Reid has called Obey out on this vote (here). We hope the press picks up on it.
We at the time called it what is was, a load of manure (post here). Congressman Obey has taken 2/3rds of his campaign contributions over the past few years from special interests PACs and their lobbyists and lawyers in DC. We, and one of the three candidates seeking to challenge Obey, called him on the carpet and asked him to limit his own campaign spending in 2006 to fall in line with his own legislation.
Obey has refused to respond.
The reason he's refused to respond is quite simple - Congressman Obey doesn't mean a single word of what he's saying. It's simply a partisan political stunt. Want further proof?
A few years ago, when Republicans were outraising Democrats in so-called soft money to political parties, Obey conducted a great deal of wailing and gnashing of teeth. "We MUST get this unregulated soft money under control or it will kill and destroy the very fabric of America."
Obey voted for campaign finance reform and soft money was eliminated from political parties.
At the same time, Obey and his Democrat cronies in Washington were filing a RICO lawsuit against Tom DeLay and the 527 independent political organization. They cried "corruption." They said, "you can't start a 527, it's an unregulated political organization. It's not fair, blah, blah, blah, blah."
Then MoveOn.org and other liberal 527s popped up and started spending hundreds of millions of unregulated dollars to help Democrats get elected.
That's ok, Dave Obey is against unregulated private money in politics, right. Surely he will fight with the same vigor to stop 527s and their evil private money which is destroying America, right?
WRONG!!
Yesterday Dave Obey voted against legislation to apply the same campaign finance reform laws he voted for a few years ago to 527s. This bi-partisan legislation was introduced by the same authors of campaign finance reform (Shays-Meehan). Yet, Dave Obey voted against it. http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2006/roll088.xml
That's right, Dave Obey cares only about scoring partisan political points rather than voting for positions he says he holds. If the money is flowing the Democrats' way, he seems willing to throw his so-called principles to the wind.
When will the press starting holding him accountable for this? When will a reporter in Wisconsin have the courage to all Dave Obey on the carpet for his complete inconsistency on campaign finance? Is there an honest mainstream reporter out there anywhere?
This just in, Nick Reid has called Obey out on this vote (here). We hope the press picks up on it.
posted by ObeyOut2006 at 9:37 AM
4 Comments:
maybe we can start a letter to the editor campaign as a start.
How can Nick issue that kind of challenge when he hasn't even won the primary yet? He still has to beat two other candidates...maybe he should concentrate on that first.
For one thing, there shouldn't even be a primary.
Nick is doing the right thing here by focusing on his real race...against DAVE OBEY. I hope that the other two candidates will listen to reason and step out for the good of the party.
From what I have heard, neither of them have raised any funding, nor do they have any state or national support. Bottom line here is that Nick's campaign is the only viable campaign that can defeat an incumbent like Obey.
Nick is working on winning the primary, but his primary focus is beating Obey.
Post a Comment
<< Home