Hypocrisy on full display....

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http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0210/Dem_senators_spent_weekend_with_ban
k_energy_tobacco_lobbyists.html?showall

February 01, 2010
Categories:Congress

Dem. senators spent weekend with bank, energy, tobacco lobbyists

Twelve Democratic Senators spent last weekend in Miami Beach raising money from
top lobbyists for oil, drug, and other corporate interests that they often
decry, according to a guest list for the event obtained by POLITICO.

The guest list for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee's "winter
retreat" at the Ritz Carlton South Beach Resort doesn't include the price tag
for attendance, but the maximum contribution to the committee, typical for such
events, is $30,000. There, to participate in "informal
conversations" and other
meetings Saturday, were senators including DSCC Chairman Robert Menendez;
Michigan's Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow; Bob Casey of Pennsylvania; Claire
McCaskill of Missouri; freshmen Kay Hagan of North Carolina and Mark Begich of
Alaska; and even left-leaning Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

Across the table was a who's who of 108 senior Washington lobbyists, including
the top lobbying officials for many of the industries Democrats regularly
attack: Represented were the American Bankers Association, the tobaco company
Altria, the oil company Marathon, several drug manufacturers, the defense
contractor Lockheed, and most of the large independent lobbying firms: Ogilvy,
BGR, Quinn Gillespie, Heather Podesta, and Tony Podesta.

The retreat's guest list is a marked contrast to Menendez's recent rhetoric,
which has echoed the White House denunciation of "special
interests" and "fat
cats."

In the upcoming elections, voters will face a choice between Republicans who
are standing with Wall Street fat cats, bankers and insurance companies -- or
Democrats who are working hard to clean up the mess we inherited by putting the
peoples interests ahead of the special interests," Menendez said in a press
release last Wednesday.

The contrast between Menendez's words and how he spent his weekend is a mark of
how, even in the age of Obama, who has barred contributions from lobbyists,
Democrats -- and particularly Congressional Democrats -- are riding a new wave
of corporate support, the natural fruit of their majority status.

The weekend's mellow schedule political included a Friday night dinner followed
by a Saturday morning Political Breakfast Briefing, two Saturday evening
"informal conversations with Senators, followed by a reception and dinner at
DiLido Beach Club.

The Miami beach fundraiser guest list, to which a DSCC spokesman didn't
immediately have a reaction, was a standard, corporate-heavy event that both
parties have long used for high-dollar fundraising. Other guests included
lobbyists for two Indian tribes, for McDonalds, for beer and wine sellers,
Ford, and a small handful of advocacy groups, including the gay group Human
Rights Campaign.

CORRECTION: The Edison Electric Institute supports climate change regulations;
an earlier version of this item said, falsely, that the industry group opposes
them.

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