{"id":374977,"date":"2010-03-01T01:01:00","date_gmt":"2010-03-01T06:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"tag:www.opensecrets.org,2010:\/news\/\/8.1394"},"modified":"2010-03-01T21:24:35","modified_gmt":"2010-03-02T02:24:35","slug":"barack-obamas-beer-bet-lost-the-health-sectors-newest-lobbying-push-and-more-in-capital-eye-opener-march-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/374977","title":{"rendered":"Barack Obama’s Beer Bet Lost, the Health Sector’s Newest Lobbying Push and more in Capital Eye Opener: March 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"obamabeer.jpg\"<\/a>Your daily dose of news and tidbits from the world of money in politics: <\/p>\n

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OBAMA BEER SUMMIT, PART II:<\/b> First, full disclosure: Molson is this humble blogger’s favorite beer brand, second only to its Canadian cousin and rival, Labatt. Such is one’s fate — a fine one, at that — growing up precisely two kilometers from the Great White North’s border with New York state. So it came with, perhaps, an overabundance in interest in learning Sunday night that President Barack Obama<\/a> will this week ship a case of Molson Canadian to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper<\/a> — the spoils of a bet lost<\/a> on the United States v. Canada Olympic hockey gold medal finals. (Canada won the riveting contest<\/a> in overtime, 3-2, after the Americans tied the score 2-2 with 24 seconds remaining in regulation.) <\/div>\n
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So, is there a money-in-politics angle to all this? Of course. Obama’s brew brand of choice is owned not only in part associated with a Yankee company — MillerCoors<\/a> — but one of the United States’ most powerful federal lobbying forces among alcohol-related interests<\/a>. With $2.22 million in lobbying expenditures last year, MillerCoors, which is jointly owned by Molson Coors Brewing and London-based SABMiller, only trailed the Distilled Spirits Council<\/a>, Anheuser-Busch InBev<\/a> and Diageo<\/a>. And yes, the company, which has some pretty major names<\/a> in the influence game working on its behalf, has lobbied the White House<\/a>.<\/div>\n
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Had the United States won the game? Harper would have sent<\/a> Obama a case of Yuengling<\/a>, the flagship product of the States’ oldest brewery. Back in July, the last time Obama’s suds selection made news, he opted for Bud Light when hosting a “beer summit<\/a>” involving Harvard Prof. Henry Louis Gates<\/a> and Cambridge, Mass., police Sgt. James Crowley — parties to a bizarre incident that led to Gates’ arrest and the president’s arguably premature admonishing (on national television) of Crowley.<\/div>\n
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And for the record, if you’re going to send the prime minister of Canada a Molson product, dial it up a notch and send him a case of Molson Export<\/a>. Yum.<\/div>\n
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\"health<\/a> <\/p>\n

HEALTH CARE LOBBYISTS STILL VERY MUCH AT IT:<\/b> Think that just because health care reform legislation is in a holding pattern while the federal government snickers, dickers, dithers and conducts largely fruitless bipartisan meetings that interested lobbyists have just … faded away?  <\/font><\/div>\n
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Think again,<\/font><\/font><\/font> reports the Washington Post<\/i>‘s Dan Eggen, who writes Sunday<\/a> that “another wave of rallies, lobbying efforts and costly advertising campaigns” are underway. The broad health care sector spend an unprecedented amount of money<\/a> on lobbying in 2009, becoming only one of two business and interest group sectors to ever crack the $500 million mark for one year. <\/div>\n
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And since we’re mentioning Eggen, it’s worth noting that he and the Post<\/i> have a new weekly column<\/a> appearing each Thursday that focuses on the federal influence industry. Check out last week’s piece here<\/a>, in which he kindly mentions our recent study<\/a> that predicts the cost of 2010 federal midterm elections.<\/div>\n
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\"cnnopinion.jpg\"<\/a> <\/p>\n

CRP, IN THE NEWS:<\/b> Center for Responsive Politics Executive Director Sheila Krumholz and I last week wrote a guest article for CNN.com<\/a> focusing on the financial ties between automaker Toyota and the very federal government that’s now investigating it over safety concerns … Former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich uses our data<\/a> in a column about Blue Cross\/Blue Shield and its subsidiary, WellPoint … The Times of London<\/i>‘s Chris Ayres cites our data<\/a> in his piece Sunday about taxing tanning salons as part of a U.S. health care reform package … Energy Future Holdings<\/a> is a focus of this Wall Street Journal<\/i> story, in which reporters Peter Lattman and Rebecca Smith use our lobbying research<\/a> while fleshing out how several former associates of President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney now work in key positions for the powerful utility company once known as TXU Corp … Krumholz is also quoted in this article<\/a> by ABC News’ Matthew Mosk about the amount of money Toyota is pouring into federal lobbying efforts … Plenty of other newspaper appearances this weekend, too, including those in the San Antonio Express-News<\/a><\/i>, Bloomberg<\/a><\/i>, the Financial Times<\/i><\/a> and the Cape Cod<\/a><\/i> (Mass.) <\/a>Times<\/a><\/i> … Finally, RT News interviews us about the potential cost of the 2010 midterm elections. View the clip below:<\/div>\n
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Have a news tip or link to pass along? We want to hear from you! E-mail us at press@crp.org<\/a>.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Your daily dose of news and tidbits from the world of money in politics: OBAMA BEER SUMMIT, PART II: First, full disclosure: Molson is this humble blogger’s favorite beer brand, second only to its Canadian cousin and rival, Labatt. Such is one’s fate — a fine one, at that — growing up precisely two kilometers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3994,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-374977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3994"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=374977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374977\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}