Obama selects Joe Biden

[Sarcasmo]

Originally Posted by cacophony

i'm not yet interested in coming back full time to this forum so i'm not going to debate all of the little points. i will say that there isn't a single politician in washington, regardless of the duration of his/her career, where you couldn't find votes to disagree with. the longer a person's career, the more opportunity they have to do or say things you don't agree with. no one is your mirror image. you just have to decide who matches up as well as is possible. if biden doesn't match up for you, then so be it. you don't have to like his record. but it seems silly to make his longevity your sticking point. using words like "entrenched" and "washington insider" says nothing about your opinion of his record. it just says you're equating short-term careers with more integrity. which makes very little sense.

if you have a problem with his record while in office, then make that your problem. don't just vex about how he's been in office for 35 years as though experience automatically means corruption.

Ugh...as loathe as I am to admit it, you're right. I don't trust longevity at all any more. I don't trust either of the big two parties, and I don't trust the way government has been run for the last 30+ years. I'll admit to prejudice on this one. We'll see where it all goes in about 2 years, huh?

[cacophony]

by the way i stumbled across this today and thought it was relevant to a point you made about campaign contributors.

obama's biggest contributors:

Goldman Sachs $653,030
University of California $576,839
JPMorgan Chase & Co $414,760
Citigroup Inc $408,299
Harvard University $407,219
Google Inc $404,191
UBS AG $389,294
Lehman Brothers $361,482
National Amusements Inc $360,703
Moveon.org $347,463
Sidley Austin LLP $329,776
Microsoft Corp $326,847
Skadden, Arps et al $320,550
Morgan Stanley $307,221
Time Warner $305,538
WilmerHale $275,132
Jones Day $272,755
Latham & Watkins $270,595
University of Chicago $268,285
Stanford University $258,388

joe biden's top contributors over time (since 1989)

MBNA Corp $214,050
Pachulski, Stang et al $195,375
Young, Conaway et al $174,729
Law Office of Peter Angelos $156,250
Simmons Cooper LLC $146,600
Kreindler & Kreindler $120,252S
kadden, Arps et al $113,225
Baron & Budd $108,050
Weil, Gotshal & Manges $103,450
Weitz & Luxenberg $93,750
Comcast Corp $83,000
Thornton & Naumes $79,100
Girardi & Keese $75,800
Saul Ewing LLP $73,385
Adler Group $71,450
Blank Rome LLP $68,150
Richards, Layton & Finger $67,800
Reaud, Morgan & Quinn $63,700
Cozen & O'Connor $62,636
Grunfeld, Desiderio et al $62,100

[jOHN rODRIGUEZ]

Wonder who Janus contributes to?

[beh]

Originally Posted by cacophony

by the way i stumbled across this today and thought it was relevant to a point you made about campaign contributors.

obama's biggest contributors:

...
University of California $576,839
...

why is my *public* education system (read: taxes) making ANY contributions to a politician?

(From an Obama supporter.)

bh

Edit: Unless it's from private individuals associated with UC.

[cacophony]

i wondered about that. but i think the way it works is that the faculty can pool money and donate in the name of the school. so the donations are actually contributed by faculty rather than coming from the school's budget.

i may be wrong about that, it's kind of a tough topic to google.

i was also wondering if it's similar to the way corporations donate. i used to work at home depot corporate and they have this rule where all employees are required to weigh in before an election to say who they would want the company to support financially. seems fishy to me, that an employer can ask you your voting preference, but it literally is a mandatory thing. they then donate proportionately according to how the employee base weighs in. it's like you're putting in a voucher for a candidate. i'm fuzzy on why they do it this way but apparently it's how they get away with sending so much money to support campaigns, because they can point to the employee base and say they're funding according to the will of the people rather than the board of directors.