Lancecastor
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Here's the Top Ten things the Candidates are refusing to reveal...which ones matter the most?
10 of the top missing documents from campaign 2008, in no particular order:
• Obama’s legal clients
Included on the firm’s client list was Rezmar, a development company co-owned by Obama’s disgraced former fundraiser, Tony Rezko, as well as developer William Moorehead. Moorehead was convicted of stealing more than $1 million from public housing projects he managed and developments he co-owned with Obama’s former boss, Allison S. Davis. Some of the thefts occurred while Moorehead was a client of the firm.
Obama’s campaign declined to answer when Politico asked if he did any work for Moorehead.
• Palin’s e-mails
The electronic correspondence of Alaska governor and Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is in high demand, not the least because she used a private e-mail account to conduct state business in what some critics claim was an effort to circumvent the state’s public record laws.
The state of Alaska is seeking to extend a deadline for producing the e-mails until Nov. 17 — nearly two weeks after the election — asserting that it is a laborious process to identify all of the relevant emails and have lawyers determine which parts can be released.
• Biden’s earmark requests
Biden, a Delaware senator, is the only candidate in the quartet for whom there is no public record of earmark requests prior to fiscal year 2009.
Biden voluntarily released his earmark wish list for that year, and it comprises 116 projects with a total price tag of $342 million, including $34 million for the University of Delaware, which since 2002 has paid at least $1.5 million to a lobbying firm in which Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, is a partner. The Obama campaign has said that Hunter Biden, who stopped his lobbying work last month, never lobbied his father.
• John and Cindy McCain’s taxes
In the years since it’s become de rigueur for presidential candidates to release their tax returns, only Ronald Reagan in 1980 disclosed less tax information than McCain.
Obama, by contrast, has released his returns dating back to 2000.
• Obama’s state Senate records and schedules
Obama signed a pair of 1998 letters on his state Senate stationery urging state and Chicago officials to provide taxpayer support for a housing project headed by Davis, Obama’s former law firm boss, and Rezko, who has since been convicted on federal corruption charges.
• Palin’s college transcripts
Palin attended five schools in three states before graduating from the University of Idaho in 1987 with an undergraduate degree in journalism.
A Palin spokeswoman declined to comment when asked by Politico if Palin would release her transcripts. The Times also reported that none of the 12 former Palin professors the newspaper interviewed remembered her.
• Obama’s Columbia thesis
Likewise, there’s not a whole lot of information available about Obama’s time at Columbia University in New York.
His campaign would not release his transcripts, and it says it does not have a copy of his thesis, which dealt with Soviet nuclear disarmament and which has drawn intense interest.
• All four candidates’ medical records
Biden, who had two brain surgeries in 1988 to repair separate aneurysms, is not the only candidate to be less-than-completely open when it comes to medical files.
McCain — who is 72 years old, has battled skin cancer and was tortured during five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam — put his personal physician on a conference call with reporters to attest to his good health and granted selected journalists three hours to leaf through nearly 1,200 pages of records covering eight years. McCain’s steps didn’t satisfy critics, including a group of nearly 3,000 doctors who demanded a "full, public release" of the candidate’s records.
Obama, who continues struggling to quit smoking and has a family history of cancer, has released only a one-page letter from his doctor proclaiming him in "excellent health," as well as "lean and muscular with no excess body fat."
"Palin has yet to release her records, but seemed to express a willingness to do so in a Wednesday interview with NBC’s Brian Williams."
• Obama’s small donors
Obama boasted that half of the record-breaking $605 million his campaign raised through the end of September came from small donors.
But this summer, when a coalition of eight good-government groups asked both presidential candidates to voluntarily release information on small contributors, only McCain complied, posting a list of all his donors on his website.
• McCain flight records
McCain’s presidential campaign used a legal loophole to hopscotch the country in a jet owned by a Cindy McCain-controlled company, King Aviation, for cut-rate fares, according to The New York Times.
10 of the top missing documents from campaign 2008, in no particular order:
• Obama’s legal clients
Included on the firm’s client list was Rezmar, a development company co-owned by Obama’s disgraced former fundraiser, Tony Rezko, as well as developer William Moorehead. Moorehead was convicted of stealing more than $1 million from public housing projects he managed and developments he co-owned with Obama’s former boss, Allison S. Davis. Some of the thefts occurred while Moorehead was a client of the firm.
Obama’s campaign declined to answer when Politico asked if he did any work for Moorehead.
• Palin’s e-mails
The electronic correspondence of Alaska governor and Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is in high demand, not the least because she used a private e-mail account to conduct state business in what some critics claim was an effort to circumvent the state’s public record laws.
The state of Alaska is seeking to extend a deadline for producing the e-mails until Nov. 17 — nearly two weeks after the election — asserting that it is a laborious process to identify all of the relevant emails and have lawyers determine which parts can be released.
• Biden’s earmark requests
Biden, a Delaware senator, is the only candidate in the quartet for whom there is no public record of earmark requests prior to fiscal year 2009.
Biden voluntarily released his earmark wish list for that year, and it comprises 116 projects with a total price tag of $342 million, including $34 million for the University of Delaware, which since 2002 has paid at least $1.5 million to a lobbying firm in which Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, is a partner. The Obama campaign has said that Hunter Biden, who stopped his lobbying work last month, never lobbied his father.
• John and Cindy McCain’s taxes
In the years since it’s become de rigueur for presidential candidates to release their tax returns, only Ronald Reagan in 1980 disclosed less tax information than McCain.
Obama, by contrast, has released his returns dating back to 2000.
• Obama’s state Senate records and schedules
Obama signed a pair of 1998 letters on his state Senate stationery urging state and Chicago officials to provide taxpayer support for a housing project headed by Davis, Obama’s former law firm boss, and Rezko, who has since been convicted on federal corruption charges.
• Palin’s college transcripts
Palin attended five schools in three states before graduating from the University of Idaho in 1987 with an undergraduate degree in journalism.
A Palin spokeswoman declined to comment when asked by Politico if Palin would release her transcripts. The Times also reported that none of the 12 former Palin professors the newspaper interviewed remembered her.
• Obama’s Columbia thesis
Likewise, there’s not a whole lot of information available about Obama’s time at Columbia University in New York.
His campaign would not release his transcripts, and it says it does not have a copy of his thesis, which dealt with Soviet nuclear disarmament and which has drawn intense interest.
• All four candidates’ medical records
Biden, who had two brain surgeries in 1988 to repair separate aneurysms, is not the only candidate to be less-than-completely open when it comes to medical files.
McCain — who is 72 years old, has battled skin cancer and was tortured during five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam — put his personal physician on a conference call with reporters to attest to his good health and granted selected journalists three hours to leaf through nearly 1,200 pages of records covering eight years. McCain’s steps didn’t satisfy critics, including a group of nearly 3,000 doctors who demanded a "full, public release" of the candidate’s records.
Obama, who continues struggling to quit smoking and has a family history of cancer, has released only a one-page letter from his doctor proclaiming him in "excellent health," as well as "lean and muscular with no excess body fat."
"Palin has yet to release her records, but seemed to express a willingness to do so in a Wednesday interview with NBC’s Brian Williams."
• Obama’s small donors
Obama boasted that half of the record-breaking $605 million his campaign raised through the end of September came from small donors.
But this summer, when a coalition of eight good-government groups asked both presidential candidates to voluntarily release information on small contributors, only McCain complied, posting a list of all his donors on his website.
• McCain flight records
McCain’s presidential campaign used a legal loophole to hopscotch the country in a jet owned by a Cindy McCain-controlled company, King Aviation, for cut-rate fares, according to The New York Times.
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