Political stardom profitable for Obama

Source: AP

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - Barack Obama has two best-selling books, a nice salary as a senator and a wife with a handsome income. Earlier this year he reported assets of up to $1.14 million in addition to his Chicago home.

That's small change to some of his presidential rivals, but more than enough to create entanglements and controversies for Obama, a Democrat who has been positioning himself as a friend of the little guy on financial matters.

snip...

When he entered the U.S. Senate in 2005, Obama's salary jumped to more than $154,000 — nearly triple what he had been making as an Illinois legislator.

His sudden political stardom also brought him a three-book deal worth $1.9 million from Random House Inc. The deal includes a children's book, and Obama says he'll give $200,000 from that book to charity.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070929/ap_on_el_pr/obama_s_money

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Oh that Liberal Media. Being a Democrat and having more than a dollar in your pocket is baaaaaaad!

And according to the facts of the article, he's earned every penny. Which makes we wonder why the article was run on that angle in the first place. Everybody works and makes money. It's not newsworthy, unless the purpose was to announce his book deal, or tell some kind of rags-to-riches story. The article does neither. It just says "Hey, look! Obama's RICH! and actually suggests some hypocricy between his income and his platform. Crappy article.

Can't wait to see the children's book.

Wall Street lawyer. He could have had his choice of any top law firm in the country. But instead he went into public service, and this is what he gets. I hate this sort of thing. Edwards is rich, and is constantly hounded for it -- would it be better if he just sat on his millions and did nothing, said nothing, about, for example, poverty??? And even the Clintons. They're rich now, but Governor of Arkansas paid nothing. They couldn't even afford to own a house. Both whip-smart graduates of Yale Law. They could have made millions and millions early on. They went into public service.

Meanwhile, seldom is the wealth of Republicans ever highlighted in the press. Maybe Mitt, because it's hard to ignore.

Dismissing him as a hypocrite. So, sadly, that tactic does seem to work, and it's not just the so-called liberal media that's to blame.

Meanwhile in the real world...

That attitude gave us Nixon in 68 and Reagan in 80. And possibly helped give us Bush in 2000.

There are probably earlier examples, from before my time.

90,000+ Nader voters in Florida.

Beyond the Bush family cheating, statistics say far more Nader voters than 537 would have went for Gore.

The Bush family was just doing what came naturally.

Nader went our of his way to Florida in the last weeks of the election and won it for Bush.