Home About Chat Users Issues Party Candidates Polling Firms Media News Polls Calendar Key Races United States President Senate House Governors International

New User Account
"A comprehensive, collaborative elections resource." 
Email: Password:

  Yet another non-scandal to chew on
NEWS DETAILS
Parent(s) Candidate 
ContributorArmyDem 
Last EditedArmyDem  Mar 08, 2007 11:57am
Logged 0
CategoryBlog Entry
News DateWednesday, March 7, 2007 05:00:00 PM UTC0:0
DescriptionPosted 11:10 am | Printer Friendly | Spotlight

The New York Times ran an article this morning about Barack Obama and some investments the Times believes are suspicious. Since the piece ran on the front page, and it wasn’t written by John Solomon, I read it expecting to find something relatively damaging.

But after going through it a couple of times, it seems, to borrow a phrase, like a “gotcha” without the gotcha.

Less than two months after ascending to the United States Senate, Barack Obama bought more than $50,000 worth of stock in two speculative companies whose major investors included some of his biggest political donors.

One of the companies was a biotech concern that was starting to develop a drug to treat avian flu. In March 2005, two weeks after buying about $5,000 of its shares, Mr. Obama took the lead in a legislative push for more federal spending to battle the disease.

The most recent financial disclosure form for Mr. Obama, an Illinois Democrat, also shows that he bought more than $50,000 in stock in a satellite communications business whose principal backers include four friends and donors who had raised more than $150,000 for his political committees.

A spokesman for Mr. Obama, who is seeking his party’s presidential nomination in 2008, said yesterday that the senator did not know that he had invested in either company until fall 2005, when he learned of it and decided to sell the stocks. He sold them at a net loss of $13,000.

Now, it seems this last paragraph should effectively end the story. Obama was not directing his investments, his broker was. As his spokesperson explained, when Obama learned of the investments he sold them at a loss.
Share
ArticleRead Full Article

NEWS
Date Category Headline Article Contributor

DISCUSSION