"No matter the trend, and no matter the cause, I still think that this
holds an important lesson for the progressive blogosphere: we still have the
ability to drive the conversation on the 2008 Democratic primary. It was through
the combined efforts of the progressive blogosphere that Clinton ended up going
on record defending lobbyists. Once that happened, her comment received
extensive news coverage, and has now been used as an avenue of attack by both
the Obama and Edwards campaigns. During it all, we discussed the incident with
our large, primary voting readerships."
I won't get into the details of if this was something that was pushed forward by the netroots or not, but I do want to address the lobbyist issue that Clinton raised. She made a very strong and valid point in her answer. There are lobbyists for oil and health care companies and the auto industry. There are also lobbyists for the environment, lobbyists for civil rights issues and a even third world poverty. I don't think that there is any thing wrong with lobbyists as a profession and I think that it is easy to demonise them because their position has been abused in the past.
What I heard in her answer was that you have to understand this the groups or companies that hire lobbyists have a right to address congress. Her answer was getting at the fact that you can't just attack lobbyists as a group for the power that they have. Lobbyists play an important role in our democracy, maybe it is a role that should be limited, but I don't think it can be eliminated.
I think that it is easy and popular to attack lobbyists, and it shows Clinton's strength that she didn't take the easy path.
No comments:
Post a Comment