DC Delegate Elanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) To Lobbyist: Hey, You Havn't Contributed To My Campaign...Time To Pony Up

Elected officials solicit contributions everyday but actually hearing a legislator hit up a lobbyist for campaign cash is going to be a shock for a lot of people. Especially so because it's such a ham-handed and brazen pitch.

After introducing herself and listing her specific areas of work, especially her oversight of homeland security projects this lobbyist might be interested in, DC Delegate to Congress and chair of the Eleanor Holmes-Norton gets down to it.

I was, frankly, uh, uh, surprised to see that we don’t have a record, so far as I can tell, of your having given to me despite my uh, long and deep uh, work. In fact, it’s been my major work, uh, on the committee and sub-committee it’s been essentially in your sector.

I am, I’m simply candidly calling to ask for a contribution. As the senior member of the um, committee and a sub-committee chair, we have (chuckles) obligations to raise, uh funds. And, I think it must have been me who hasn’t, frankly, uh, done my homework to ask for a contribution earlier. So I’m trying to make up for it by asking for one now, when we particularly, uh, need, uh contributions, particularly those of us who have the seniority and chairmanships and are in a position to raise the funds.

Big Government has the audio (racist!) and a full transcript.

This is simply the daily sausage making that goes on in politics but in a year where corruption, spending and disgust for an entrenched ruling class are the big issues, I expect this to show up in a lot of Republican ads.

Of course, there are a lot of Republicans wondering if they were dumb enough to leave this kind of message recently. Here's hoping not.

What's really interesting is lobbyists must get calls like this all the time, though perhaps not so brash. The fact that this one was willing to release this shows he or she isn't afraid of Democratic retaliation. Never a good sign when the pros have you marked for dead.

Obviously the big question the media will ask is...why does Andrew Breitbart hate black women?

posted by DrewM. at 12:05 PM

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