CCP Chairman Brad Smith is featured in a Politico article that outlines the connections that Barack Obama and John Edwards have to the lobbying community.
Below is an excerpt from the story:
Brad Smith, chairman of the Center for Competitive Politics, said both Edwards and Obama have made a calculation that the political mileage of not taking donations from lobbyists outweighs the cash they would take in.
And Obama has been putting some miles on the anti-lobbyist rhetoric. On Tuesday, his campaign sent out a fundraising solicitation that read, in part, "At a time when money from Washington lobbyists and special interests is polluting the political process more than ever, the question for campaigns isn’t just whether they can compete financially — it’s how they do it."
Smith called the distinction Edwards and Obama draw between federal registered lobbyists and others in the lobbying community "a little bit phony." For the two candidates, that distinction meant ceding almost $210,000 in federal lobbyists’ donations to Clinton, according to the CRP’s data.
"It’s really a symbolic issue," said Smith, whose group promotes the deregulation of elections. "It’s one that (Sens.) Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) or Joe Biden (D-Del.) can’t afford to do. They need the cash to compete."
