Asia-Pacific

Obama steps up attack on anonymous campaign money

(Agencies)
Updated: 2010-10-13 11:24

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama on Tuesday stepped up his attack on anonymous campaign donations by foreign corporate interests, despite the insistence of business groups that the claim was baseless.

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Taking care not to point the finger directly at anyone, Obama said the campaign money could be coming from the oil industry to counter his environmental policies, or from financial firms who dislike his Wall Street reforms.

"We don't know if they are being funded by foreign corporations, because they're not disclosed," Obama told a meeting of Democratic supporters.

Republicans are expected to make strong gains in the congressional elections on Nov 2 as voters are seen punishing Obama's Democrats for a stuttering economy with unemployment stuck near 10 percent.

The Republicans say Americans care about job creation, not campaign finance.

The US Chamber of Commerce, targeted by the Democratic Party in a television advertisement picturing a stack of Chinese bank notes, said the White House was conducting a smear campaign to distract voters from the weak economy.

"We are seeing an attempt to demonize specific groups and distract Americans from a failed economic agenda," said Bruce Josten, executive vice president at the Chamber. "With three weeks until Election Day, it's time to return to the discussion that Americans care most about: job creation."

All 435 seats in the US House of Representatives and 37 of the 100 Senate seats are up for grabs next month. Polls show Republicans could win control of the House and may even challenge Democratic command of the Senate.

Obama, who has criticized a Supreme Court ruling that opened US election campaigns to corporate money as a boon for big business, said he wanted the Court to reverse its decision.

"I hope that the Supreme Court at some point looks at the evidence that's accumulated over the last several months and says this is really hijacking our democracy, this is not a healthy thing," Obama said.

Ballot Buying

The Court's ruling in January involved a group called Citizens United and cited free speech rights guaranteed in the first amendment to the US Constitution. The ruling overturned a ban on political spending by corporations in elections.

The White House stepped up its attacks against anonymous funding of anti-Democrat advertising and shrugged off claims it was trying to distract voters.

"If there are organizations raising tens of millions of dollars who won't tell us who their donors are, my guess is they're not telling us for a reason -- because they have something to hide," said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs.

"The best way to clear any of this stuff up would simply be to disclose the names."

The Chamber of Commerce, which has battled Obama for months over laws he has signed that it says hurt businesses, flatly denies any foreign funds contribute to its campaigns against his landmark healthcare and Wall Street reform laws.

The fight has escalated into a broader charge by Republicans that Obama is anti-business, which has helped them energize their conservative base ahead of next month's vote.

But an unapologetic White House challenged the Chamber to show Americans where its money comes from, and said Republicans were in the pocket of big business.

"They supplant an entire national political party, spend tens of millions of dollars, in the end in total probably hundreds of millions of dollars, without knowing who they are, what their agenda is or who they represent. That's not good for our democracy," Gibbs told a daily press briefing.