Klobuchar Apologists Attack Kennedy

In an obvious ploy to distract people from her lobbyist past, Amy Klobuchar's willing accomplices sought to change the subject by complaining that Mark Kennedy was beholden to "big money special interests."
Kennedy, they noted, is saying that he will be independent and push for change in scandal-torn Washington, even while appearing at fundraisers sponsored by lobbyists. He was to appear at an event Thursday night with Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, who headed a GOP project to press lobbyists to support Republicans. Through March 31, Kennedy had accepted $1.3 million from PACs, more than 25 percent of his donations.

"If Mark Kennedy really wants voters to believe he's going to change Washington, he shouldn't be shaking down big money special interests for campaign cash between votes," said Karl Frisch, a spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
If you relied on Mr. Frisch, you'd never find out that Ms. Klobuchar's received $289K from attorneys and another $413k from EMILY's List. That's near or over half of Ms. Klobuchar's campaign warchest. Here's how EMILY's List describes themselves:
EMILY's List, the nation's largest grassroots political network, is dedicated to taking back our country from the radical right wing by electing pro-choice Democratic women to federal, state, and local office.

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EMILY's List is ready to help take back Congress in 2006 by working to protect Democratic women incumbents facing tough re-elections, helping to elect new qualified candidates, training campaign staff, and raising the resources we need to win.
Ms. Klobuchar has every right to accept these donations but it's dishonest for her to characterize Mark Kennedy's contributions as coming from "big money special interests" while pretending that the attorney's contributions and EMILY'S List's contributions aren't "big money special interests", too.
Kennedy's campaign manager, Pat Shortridge, contended that the Democrats' fundraising salvos were merely an attempt to create a "smokescreen" and "muddy the water" to protect Klobuchar, the Hennepin County attorney who has the DFL endorsement. While Kennedy's campaign has "never made a secret of the fact that we raise money in Washington," he also has received nearly 21,000 contributions from individuals, Shortridge said.
The real test of whether someone's beholden to special interest contributors is in their spending track record. Mark Kennedy has as strong a record for fiscal responsibility as anyone in the Senate, including Tom Coburn.

Using that benchmark, let's ask if anyone thinks that Ms. Klobuchar will say no to any of the liberal special interest lobbies. Of course they don't. There isn't a snowball's prayer in hell that she'll be fiscally responsible.



Posted Thursday, June 22, 2006 10:09 PM

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