But it's interesting that you read the article as saying that Obama takes money from lobbyists, since it does make it clear that no registered lobbyists were among the Greenberg contributors.
IMO that statement represents a conclusion on your part not supported by the facts stated in the story.
All the story says about the contributions from employees is the following 2 items:
1. Obama has now raised about $125,000 from Greenberg Traurig employees — nearly half of it at the time of the event — more than from any of the other top law and lobby firms.
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2. The contributions apparently comprise the “smaller donors” that Obama likes to mention as his supposedly grassroots efforts. According to Open Secrets, Greenberg employees made 186 separate contributions to his presidential campaign, many of them in the last week of September 2007. It appears that the Obama campaign wanted the donations back-dated in order to get credit for the amounts in third-quarter fundraising figures.
Since Greenberg Traurig is a large law firm which, by other accounts, includes lobbying among various activities on behalf of its clients, their employees no doubt perform many functions. There is no way to tell from the story itself whether the employees who contributed were clerks, researchers, para-legals, lawyers, managers, or any other type of staffers. Nor is there any way to tell whether any of those who contributed were registered lobbyists, or not.
If I have missed something in the story that "does make it clear that no registered lobbyists were among the Greenberg contributors" please point it out to me.
Thanks. |
