Obama supporters who bashed McCain on his Paxson ties, it seems Obama is vulnerable to the same line of criticism. Obama's Blackwell ties are eerily similar to McCain's problem with Paxson (where McCain wrote a letter to the FCC favoring Paxson's economic position, possibly influenced by Paxson's employee campaign donations or lobbyists):
I will give Obama and McCain the benefit of the doubt that they did nothing wrong here, but Obama's Blackwell ties and McCain's Paxson ties are both likely to be targeted as we approach November. I wouldn't be surprised to see ads involving either issue running in Wisconsin in the coming months... After all, Paxson and Blackwell don't run too great with both candidates' self-professed "reformer" images.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/washingtondc/la -na-killerspin27apr27,1 ,2764345.story
Chicago entrepreneur Robert Blackwell Jr. paid Obama an $8,000-a-month retainer to give legal advice to his growing technology firm, Electronic Knowledge Interchange. It allowed Obama to supplement his $58,000 part-time state Senate salary for over a year with regular payments from Blackwell's firm that eventually totaled $112,000.
A few months after receiving his final payment from EKI, Obama sent a request on state Senate letterhead urging Illinois officials to provide a $50,000 tourism promotion grant to another Blackwell company, Killerspin.
Killerspin specializes in table tennis, running tournaments nationwide and selling its own line of equipment and apparel and DVD recordings of the competitions. With support from Obama, other state officials and an Obama aide who went to work part time for Killerspin, the company eventually obtained $320,000 in state grants between 2002 and 2004 to subsidize its tournaments.
Obama's staff said the senator advocated only for the first year's grant -- which ended up being $20,000, not $50,000. The day after Obama wrote his letter urging the awarding of the state funds, Obama's U.S. Senate campaign received a $1,000 donation from Blackwell.
Obama's presidential campaign rejects any suggestion that there was a connection between the legal work, the campaign contribution and the help with the grant. "Any implication that Sen. Obama would risk an ethical breach in order to secure a small grant for a pingpong tournament is nuts," said David Axelrod, Obama's chief political advisor.
I will give Obama and McCain the benefit of the doubt that they did nothing wrong here, but Obama's Blackwell ties and McCain's Paxson ties are both likely to be targeted as we approach November. I wouldn't be surprised to see ads involving either issue running in Wisconsin in the coming months... After all, Paxson and Blackwell don't run too great with both candidates' self-professed "reformer" images.
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