Hillary Clinton's campaign, pushed by more than $1 billion in funding from big-money donors, has embraced super PACs, unlike Barack Obama, and forged ahead despite concerns of "hypocrisy" and the Democratic presidential nominee being "too cozy with wealthy interests," as the Washington Post reported Sunday.
The Post reported more than one fifth of the $1 billion "was given by just 100 wealthy individuals and labor unions — many with a long history of contributing to the Clintons."
"The top five donors together contributed one out of every $17 for her 2016 run: hedge fund manager S. Donald Sussman ($20.6 million); Chicago venture capitalist J.B. Pritzker and his wife, M.K. ($16.7 million); Univision chairman Haim Saban and his wife, Cheryl ($11.9 million); hedge fund titan George Soros ($9.9 million); and SlimFast founder S. Daniel Abraham ($9.7 million)," The Post's Matea Gold and Anu Narayanswamy wrote.
"I would prefer if the limits were much smaller, but that's the way it is," Abraham, 92, told the Post.
Despite the large funding, permitted by the Supreme Court's Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision in 2010, Clinton is hailed as someone who can change the campaign finance problem . . . after benefitting from it.
"It's very odd to be giving millions when your objective is to actually get the money out of poli-tics," Sussman told the Post. "I am a very strong supporter of publicly financed campaigns, and I think the only way to accomplish that is to get someone like Secretary Clinton, who is committed to cleaning up the unfortunate disaster created by the activist court in Citizens United."
Dan Schwerin, director of speechwriting, acknowledges the "complaints of hypocrisy," per the report.
"Policy alone won't make the cognitive dissonance go away, in fact it might heighten it," he told the Post. "But having her make the unilateral disarmament argument directly and maybe even some straight talk that cuts to the core of people's concerns about her relationship with donors in general, might help."