Barack Obama

Michael Moore States Obama Recipient of Pharma Payola

(Cross-posted on my Obama.com blog)

Michael Moore has posted a letter on his web site and to his blog on Huffinton Post that states “you [Obama] are now the second largest recipient of health industry payola after Hillary. You now take more money from the people committed to stopping universal health care than any of the Republican candidates.”

There is no data presented to support this statement, but several commentors on Huffington Post said they did not know that Obama was accepting pharma dollars and that they have changed their minds about voting for him. I sent a message to Obama HQ to alert them to this situation, and they assured me that the campaign accepts contributions from individual donors only. Here is the response from Obama HQ:

Senator Obama does not accept contributions from federal lobbyists, corporations or PACs. All donors are required to list their employer and occupation, and that data is made public under federal law. Some private organizations use this data to track the contributions of people employed in an industry (or a profession or corporation), and then say that the “industry” has contributed.

In fact, individuals employed in that particular industry have donated. Also note that people can donate in their own name only and may only use personal funds. It is against federal law for a company to give money to its employees in order for it to be donated to a federal campaign.

It appears to me that Moore simply surveyed the list of all presidential campaign donors sorted by employer and if employees from pharmaceutical companies donated money to the Obama campaign they were considered by Moore to be pharma lobbyists!

Update (01/07/2008): Michael has posted links to the ‘data’ that he used to support his allegation of Obama accepting PAC and pharma dollars. He is using opensecrets.org as his source.

Here are the links that are related – Summary table of all ‘Health’ related docations: METHODOLOGY: “The numbers on this page are based on contributions from PACs and individuals giving $200 or more. All donations took place during the 2007-2008 election cycle and were released by the Federal Election Commission on Monday, October 29, 2007.”

The Contributions by Sector table provides a view of contributions by sector, broken out by PAC and individual contribution for Obama. METHODOLOGY: “The figures profiled here include money from two sources: These contributors were either the sponsors of a PAC that gave to the politician, or they were listed as an individual donor’s employer. Donors who give more than $200 to any federal candidate, PAC or party committee must provide information on their occupation and employer, based upon which the donor is given an economic code. These totals are conservative, as not all of the individual contributions have yet been classified by the Center.”

My assessment is that Moore’s data is based on individual contributions only. He is taking a huge liberty in correlating individuals to any sort of professional lobbyist, simply because they are employed by a large corporation and have contributed over $200. By that criteria I would be considered to be a lobbyist or some sort of supporter of my employer, when, in fact, I am simply clinging to my job in order to pay my bills.

© 2008 Life is an Ongoing Process.