From the Dispatch on Sunday:
After blasting Republican Senate candidate Rob Portman for raising money from political action committees in Washington, D.C., Democratic Senate candidate Lee Fisher will hold a fundraiser in Washington in which political action committees are expected to donate to his campaign.
Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, will host the fundraiser Tuesday at the Monacle, an upscale restaurant on Capitol Hill that often attracts lawmakers and lobbyists for lunch and dinner. The invitation asks that PACs contribute $2,500 to $5,000.
For the uninitiated, the Monocle is widely known as the default location for big money fundraisers in DC. Everyone who is going to go get themselves some DC money makes sure they have an event there. It’s where Ted Kennedy, John Tower, and uncountable others held court for decades as they imbibed on martinis paid for by lobbyists. It symbolizes everything that is considered by many as wrong with DC…
….and here’s Lee Fisher walking into it this past Sunday.
Now don’t get me wrong. Lee, just like any other politician, has the right to go raise some cash wherever he wants.
But he simply can’t talk out both sides of his face by talking down Rob Portman for the very thing Lee Fisher practices himself.
How egregious is Fisher’s hypocrisy? The co-host of the fundraiser was Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye, the Senator from Hawaii who last year totaled up $387 million in legislative pork, the highest for any Democrat in Congress. Think that guy has some lobbyist connections? Um. Yeah.
Lee Fisher complains about politics as usual. He is politics as usual.