Obama Refuses To Pay "Walking Around Money"



(image via nytimes)

Remember when that oily, amoral Republican-Peroista opportunistic operative Ed Rollins bragged about giving so-called preachers in New Jersey "walking around money" to suppress the African-American vote so that the now-disgraced Christie Todd Whitman could become Governor? There's another story on the subject in the Los Angeles Times (via Time magazine's Swampland):

"The dispute centers on the dispensing of 'street money,' a long-standing Philadelphia ritual in which candidates deliver cash to the city's Democratic operatives in return for getting out the vote.

"Flush with payments from well-funded campaigns, the ward leaders and Democratic Party bosses typically spread out the cash in the days before the election, handing $10, $20 and $50 bills to the foot soldiers and loyalists who make up the party's workforce.

"It is all legal -- but Obama's people are telling the local bosses he won't pay.

"That sets up a culture clash, pitting a candidate who promises to transform American politics against the realities of a local political system important to his presidential hopes. Pennsylvania holds its primary April 22.

"Obama's posture confounds neighborhood political leaders sympathetic to his cause. They caution that if the senator from Illinois withholds money that gubernatorial, mayoral and presidential candidates have willingly paid out for decades, there could be defections to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York. And the Clinton campaign, in contrast, will oblige in forking over the money, these ward leaders predict."

Reason #700 to love Senator Obama.