Obama Defends Use of Money From Senate PAC
DES MOINES, Iowa _ Saying he had not violated any campaign finance rules, Sen. Barack Obama on Sunday defended use of money from his Senate political action committee to back candidates and officials who in some cases later endorsed his presidential bid.
Earlier in the day, Sen. Hillary Clinton’s campaign had called the Illinois Democrat’s Hopefund a “slush fund” that should be closed now that he is a presidential candidate.
Aides to the New York senator said she made dormant her political action committee, HillPac, when she entered the race in January to avoid potential legal problems of the fund improperly benefiting her presidential effort. Such PACs are not supposed to coordinate their use of funds with presidential campaigns unless such help is reported as a contribution.
The Washington Post reported last week that Obama’s campaign, after initially denying any coordination between Hopefund and Obama’s presidential bid, had indeed consulted on who should receive the money.
Obama responded to the Clinton camp’s criticism Sunday by saying: “Unless they can show that it hasn’t been (legal), I’d suggest they focus on trying to get their supporters to the caucus in Iowa.”
Obama’s Hopefund has distributed contributions to congressional candidates as well as officials and local Democratic Party groups across the nation, including in the early voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada.
The Associated Press reported that Hopefund gave nearly $160,000 between July 1 and Nov. 5 to local and congressional officials in states that are holding presidential contests next month. During that period, the fund gave about $210,000 to federal candidates in other states, AP reported.
Obama said Hopefund is no longer raising money, but that because of the rapid nature of his decision to run for president he was left with money in the fund that he has shared with other Democrats.
“I have not been planning to run for president for however number of years some of the other candidates have been planning for,” he said. “So, by the time we announced that I was running, there was still money left over, which we used to contribute to candidates all across the country to help build a Democratic majority.”
Obama’s campaign said Hopefund was simply trying to assist Democratic candidates and pointed out that of the $476,000 it contributed in 2007, about 57 percent went to states other than Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada or South Carolina. Ironically, the fund also gave money to Clinton in 2005.
Obama said the fund has even given money to candidates now backing Clinton. “I think what people need to focus on is that all these accusations that are starting to come out, seem to correspond to shifts in political fortune,” he said.
With just one month before the Iowa caucuses, Obama’s campaign received a boost over the weekend when The Des Moines Register’s Iowa Poll showed he has support from 28 percent of likely caucus participants, compared to 25 percent for Clinton.
In a sign that the engagement between the two leading Democratic candidates is only likely to grow, Clinton’s campaign suggested voters still have much to learn about the junior senator from Illinois.
“Obama tells voters he rejects money from federal lobbyists and corporate political action committees,” Clinton’s campaign said in a statement. “But the Hopefund money he is distributing in early states includes over $120,000 from federal PACs and over $30,000 from registered federal lobbyist including Lockheed Martin, Wal-Mart and Citibank.”
Even the suggestion from Obama that he had not been thinking about running for president for very long triggered a rapid counter-claim from the Clinton campaign, using news accounts to suggest that he had been toying with a presidential bid for years, if not decades.
“Sen. Obama’s comment today is fundamentally at odds with what his teachers, family, classmates and staff have said about his plans to run for president,” Clinton spokesman Phil Singer said in a statement. “Sen. Obama’s campaign rhetoric is getting in the way of his reality.”
That prompted a further volley from the Obama camp.
“I’m sure tomorrow they’ll attack him for being a flip-flopper because he told his second-grade teacher he wanted to be an astronaut,” Obama spokesman Bill Burton said in a statement.
Obama discussed Hopefund at a news conference in Des Moines in which that city’s mayor, Frank Cownie, endorsed him.
At a rally at Iowa State University in Ames, Obama also responded to allegations that his campaign is improperly encouraging non-native Iowa college students to participate in the caucuses.
The state’s most influential political columnist, David Yepsen of The Des Moines Register, had recently questioned Obama’s tactics of encouraging students “not from Iowa” to participate in the caucuses.
Reading from a note card to make sure he used the correct wording, Obama told several hundred students gathered that they could caucus near campus or return to their Iowa hometowns to do so.
He avoided using the troublesome phrase “not from Iowa” that had been used on a brochure being distributed to 50,000 college students in the state.
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