One of the things that McCain supporters (and I’m being kind because I’m really talking about Obama-haters here) like to throw out in the past week or two is how much Obama profited from Freddie and Fannie. They base their information on this quote from McCain:
While Fannie and Freddie were working to keep Congress away from their house of cards, Senator Obama was taking their money. He got more, in fact, than any other member of Congress, except for the Democratic chairman of the committee that oversees them.” —Sen. John McCain, at a campaign stop Friday, September 19, in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
The figures came from the Center for Responsive Politics, which reports on campaign contributions received by candidates for office. They track how much money a candidate receives from a company by tracking the amount contributed to a campaign by its employees. Remember employees? Those are the folks that draw a paycheck, but seldom have a say in determining policy for a business. They’re the ones, in fact, who most often know what’s wrong in a company and what needs to be done to change it. Barack Obama received over $125k in contributions from employees of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. What’s not reported is that he also received $16,000 in contributions from the company’s directors, officers and lobbyists who work for the company. You know directors, right? They’re the ones that make decisions and policy for a company and who profit from its activities – far more than employees who receive a salary.
John McCain received $169,000 in campaign contributions from directors, officers and lobbyists for Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae – you remember lobbyists, too, right? They’re the ones who help influence political policies in favor of things that will be profitable for the directors of companies and industry. McCain also received over $21k from employees.
CNN’s Political Ticker Fact Checker calls the assertion by McCain “partially true but misleading”. I call it a freaking self-serving deliberate misrepresentation – or in words that most Obama haters would understand – a fucking lie.
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